The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

By: Katherine Montalto | April 22 2010
Posted in Find It - Chicago

Before 1928 people had to slice their own bread with a knife! Otto Frederick Rohwedder, the American inventor and engineer changed all that with his amazing automatic bread-slicing machine. Bakers worried no one would want to buy pre-sliced bread, that it might go bad faster. The ingenious Otto simply tweaked his machine to also automatically wrap the bread ensuring it stayed fresh.

Photo: Katherine Montalto

Sliced bread made its world debut on July 7, 1928 in Chillicothe, Missouri and it was the greatest thing. Well, not exactly. Most customers just didn’t see the point of buying pre-sliced bread until Wonder Bread came along and touted their mass-produced sliced bread as practically a miracle of science. By WWII the troops were using the convenient pre-sliced bread to make thousands of PB&J sandwiches bringing their love for the now classic sandwich back from the war with them.

So, where does the phrase “the greatest thing since sliced bread” come from? No one is really sure. It may have come from the inventor himself, who was known to say of the things he was particularly smitten with, “this is the greatest thing since I invented sliced bread!” It may come from Wonder Bread ad campaigns launched in the 1930’s that championed the wonders of their pre-sliced bread.

Wonder Bread may be wondrous but nothing beats a fresh baked loaf from a local bakery. Many bakeries have an automatic bread-slicing machine similar to the one invented by Otto Rohwedder over 70 years ago which they use to conveniently slice your bread upon request. One of my favorite places to get fresh bread in Chicago is Red Hen Bakery in Wicker Park where you can get the closest thing to a Persian banquette this side of the pond.

What’s your favorite local place to get fresh sliced bread?