Sliced bread – where does it come from?

You’ve heard the expression “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” But what makes sliced bread so special? To understand the importance of the humble bread slicer, we have to travel back to 1927 when the first bread slicer was created by amateur inventor Otto Rohwedder. After hearing families complain about the amount of time they spent slicing bread Rohwedder designed a machine that would do the job for them.

At the time most bakers refused to slice bread in advance because it would go stale. Rohwedder’s machine not only cut bread into perfectly even slices but wrapped them in wax paper to preserve freshness.

The first loaf of machine sliced bread was sold in 1928. According to Priceonomics just five years later, 80% of commercially sold bread in America was sliced. To homemakers, sliced bread was more than a small convenience.

In a New York Times editorial, one woman wrote: For [family] lunches I must cut by hand at least twenty slices, for two sandwiches apiece. I should like to let you know how important sliced bread is to the morale and saneness of a household. At a time when bread made up close to a third of the average American’s diet access to pre-packed sliced bread meant hours of saved food preparation time. Sliced bread meant freedom. 

source: Mentalfloss