Machine-sliced bread first went on sale
On this day · 7 July 1928
A Missouri bakery sold the first pre-sliced loaves, and gave the world its favorite measure of progress.
On July 7, 1928, the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri, put the first commercially machine-sliced loaves on sale to the public. The bread, branded Kleen Maid, was cut and wrapped by a contraption built by inventor Otto Rohwedder.
Rohwedder had spent years on the idea, fending off bakers who insisted pre-sliced bread would simply go stale or fall apart. His breakthrough was a machine that both sliced a loaf with multiple blades and wrapped it tightly enough to stay fresh on the shelf.
The public disagreed with the skeptics, emphatically. Convenience won out, sliced loaves spread nationwide within a few years, and the novelty lodged itself in the language.
It is the reason we still call a bright idea “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
Few inventions are so humble, and few have such a quotable legacy.
Sources & references
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