The Story of Sliced Bread: How a Former Jeweler Invented the Bread Slicer

Bread is one of humanity’s oldest foods, dating back to the Neolithic era. For millennia, people baked bread and sliced it by hand. However, the familiar pre‑sliced loaf wrapped in factory packaging only emerged in the 20th century. Its creation is tied to Otto Frederick Rohwedder (1880–1960), a man who made an extraordinary transition from jewelry to a groundbreaking food industry invention.

Otto Frederick Rohwedder was born in 1880. After studying at the Illinois College of Optometry, he did not pursue a career in that field. Instead, he mastered the craft of jewelry making. In the early 20th century, Rohwedder opened three jewelry stores and achieved a degree of success, establishing a stable business.

However, in the 1910s, he made a surprising decision: he sold all his jewelry stores to dedicate himself to developing a machine for automatic.

At that time, the idea of mechanized bread slicing was not entirely new. Occasional devices had appeared, but they remained rudimentary and failed to gain widespread adoption. Rohwedder envisioned a comprehensive machine that would not only slice bread but also ensure its freshness after cutting.

He worked on the prototype alone, without a team of engineers, relying solely on his own efforts. The first major challenge he encountered was the rapid staling of sliced bread. In his quest for solutions, Rohwedder experimented with various methods to keep the slices together. One attempt involved using office thumbtacks to hold the slices—a method that proved both ineffective and potentially hazardous to consumers. Consequently, he had to abandon this approach.

In 1917, a serious misfortune struck: a fire broke out at the factory of his first potential clients, who had agreed to test the invention. The blaze destroyed all the blueprints, prototypes, and partnership documents Rohwedder had worked on for years. This was a severe blow, but the inventor did not give up and began the work anew.

Over the next decade, Rohwedder persistently refined his design. The key breakthrough was combining two functions in a single machine: slicing and packaging. By 1927, he had created a device that not only cut loaves evenly and precisely into slices of a specified thickness but also immediately wrapped them in protective material, which slowed down the staling process.

Rohwedder carefully considered the slicing parameters. After numerous experiments, he determined the optimal slice thickness—just under half an inch (approximately 1 cm). This size proved convenient for consumption and struck a balance between aesthetics and functionality.

For his innovations, Rohwedder received seven patents, securing his rights to the key elements of the machine’s design.

July 7, 1928—Rohwedder’s birthday—became a historic day. On that date, the first commercially sliced loaf was sold at Frank Bench’s Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri, under the name *Sliced Kleen Maid Bread*. This event marked the beginning of a new era in baking.

The market reaction was unexpectedly strong. By 1930, sliced bread was available in small towns across the country. Consumers quickly appreciated the convenience: no more time spent on slicing, uniformly cut pieces, and packaging that preserved freshness.

By 1933, statistics showed that more than 80 % of bread sold in the United States was pre‑sliced. *Wonder Bread* was among the first major brands to include sliced bread in its product line, further boosting the item’s popularity.

The story of sliced bread was not without challenges. In 1943, during World War II, U.S. authorities imposed a temporary ban on the sale of sliced bread. The measure aimed to conserve packaging materials needed for the war effort. The ban took effect on January 18 but sparked widespread public discontent. People had grown accustomed to the convenience of sliced bread, and returning to manual slicing felt like a step backward. Under public pressure, the restriction was lifted just a few months later.

Today, pre‑sliced bread is a common staple on store shelves worldwide. The first model of Rohwedder’s bread slicer is preserved at the Smithsonian Institution as a significant artifact, illustrating how a single idea can transform the daily lives of millions.

Otto Rohwedder’s story exemplifies how persistence and engineering ingenuity can turn a seemingly simple concept into a large‑scale innovation. His invention did more than just simplify the process of making sandwiches—it reshaped consumer habits, spurred advancements in packaging technology, and left a notable mark on the 20th‑century food industry.