The jeweler who gave the world sliced bread.

An Idea Takes Shape

Otto Rohwedder held a belief that people who cook at home would save time if bakeries sliced bread for them. He started to develop this concept around 1912 while he worked as a jeweler and a maker of instruments that require high accuracy. By using his experience with small mechanical parts, he designed the equipment despite many years of difficult work and delays. In 1917 a fire ruined his original model plus his technical drawings but he continued to work in his shop.

The First Sliced Loaf

To solve the problem of bread becoming hard, Rohwedder created a machine between 1927 and 1928 that cut loaves into equal pieces and covered them in protective material. On July 7, 1928, the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri, provided the first loaves that were cut and packaged for sale to the public. As people bought the product, they realized that they did not need to use a knife to cut pieces from the loaf manually. And as information reached more individuals, the popularity of the product grew.

For a long time bakers but also sellers of food feared that slicing would make bread go stale or make it hard to move without damage - but the introduction of new equipment and wrapping methods removed those worries. If a few years passed, the technology was no longer limited to Chillicothe. Due to the success of the machine, large businesses like the firm that produces Wonder Bread started using automatic slicers and wrappers during the 1930s. With the spread of this technology, sliced bread became a standard product in the United States.

A Lasting Legacy

It also served as the basis for the expression “the best thing since sliced bread” - but this phrase is an idiom that became frequent during the middle of the 20th century rather than during 1928. On January 18, 1943, the federal government prohibited the sale of bread that bakers had already sliced because officials wanted to conserve materials during World War II - but the government lifted this rule on March 8, 1943, when members of the public expressed their opposition.

By the end of his life, Rohwedder was not as famous as the machines that he created. He obtained patents and licenses for his designs but other people received most of the money when the public began to use the technology in large numbers. As people place uniform pieces of bread on kitchen surfaces today, they are using the results of work by a man who spent more than ten years making an original idea into a common product.