This investigation demonstrated that measurements of freshness perception after either consumption or odour evaluation only in two separate consumer studies, enabled participants to very effectively discriminate between the products tested. Internal freshness mapping showed that individual consumers strongly agreed that by either consuming or smelling alone, croissant, brioche, rye bread, butter cake and short biscuit were most fresh. Qualitative information revealed that specific terms were related to particular product types as did relationships between sensory analysis and consumer freshness ratings. In particular moist appearance/texture, sweet, buttery flavour, malty odour and crunchy texture were used by both consumers and trained assessors to distinguish similarities and differences in the descriptions of freshness for the three product types. For foccacia bread, angel cake multigrain bread, madeira cake and malt biscuit, changing the mode of presentation from evaluating freshness following consumption to smelling only odour resulted in the loss of some sensory cues, which may have influence the level of perceived freshness. Consumer and descriptive sensory vocabularies from both studies were comparable, which enabled a more pertinent interpretation of the freshness perception for different baked product types that is directly relevant from the consumer perspective. This information could be applied to ensure newly developed products within each product category are perceived as fresh at the point of sale. In addition, these product qualities that consumers associate with product freshness could be used by the baking industry to communicate freshness from a marketing perspective.