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It is quite common to hear people describe something nice as “the next best thing after sliced bread” - an expression that proves that sliced bread is up there in the list of the best things that were invented.
The simple answer lies with Otto Frederick Rohwedder, an American inventor.
Born on July 7, 1880, in Iowa, Rohwedder was a man of many talents. He started out training as a jeweller but he also had other interests including inventing machines.
Back then bread had already been existing for hundreds of years but it was only sold in whole loaves.
Rohwedder soon decided he wanted to invent a bread-slicing machine. In 1912, he sold his jewellery stores for capital and decided to create a machine to slice bread.
Despite his determination, Rohwedder faced several challenges, including finding a way to keep the bread from going stale too quickly after being sliced, and then at the time, bakers were skeptical, believing that pre-sliced bread would dry out and lose its freshness.
Just when he was making headway with his invention, Rohwedder suffered a devastating loss - a fire in his factory destroyed his blueprints and his prototype.
Undeterred, Rohwedder continued working on his machine and in 1928, he developed a machine that not only sliced bread but also wrapped it to preserve its freshness.
His first commercial bread-slicing machine was installed at the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri, and on July 7, 1928, the first loaves of pre-sliced bread were sold.
The sliced bread was an instant success. Consumers were delighted with the convenience of pre-sliced loaves, and sales skyrocketed. In fact, a company named Wonder Bread adopted Rohwedder’s innovation, helping to popularize sliced bread across the country.
It can be agreed that Rohwedder’s invention has totally changed the way all of us consume bread.
Even though whole loaves are still sold today, we can't deny that his invention did set a standard for food packaging and even convenience.
Rohwedder passed away in 1960, but his invention lives on in many homes today. So next time you reach for that perfectly sliced loaf, remember the man who made it all possible.
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