On this day, in Chillicothe, Missouri, the Chillicothe Baking Company sold the first sample of its latest product: a loaf of sliced bread. The idea was the brainchild of Otto Frederick Rohwedder, a jeweller and part-time inventor. Convinced that he could develop a bread slicing machine, Otto sold his jewellery stores and in 1927 successfully designed a machine that not only sliced the bread but wrapped it. He sold the first machine to a friend and baker Frank Bench, who installed it at the Chillicothe Baking Company. The success of sliced bread, whose standardised slices were perfect for the newly-invented, automatic, pop-up toasters, meant that by 1933 American bakeries were producing for the first time more sliced bread than unsliced bread. Otto’s invention gave birth to the modern appreciative expression, “It’s the best thing since sliced bread.”
