A Slice of History

"It's the best thing since sliced bread." The expression trips off the tongue easily and fust about everyone knows what it means But where did it originate and why was sliced bread considered to be such a marvel?

The first bread slicing machine was invented in 1912 by an American, Otto Rohwedder. At the age of thirty-two, he was living in Missouri, where he was the owner of three jewellery shops, when he came up with the somewhat unlikely idea of inventing a machine for slicing bread. He faced many setbacks before he was able to launch his invention. A factory fire in 1917 destroyed five years' hard work, including his blueprints and prototypes. It was to be another eleven years before the first bread-slicer was ready to be launched in 1928. Measuring five feet long and three feet high, it was not given an enthusiastic welcome by the bakers of the time. They were unimpressed with the idea of sliced bread, saying that not only would their customers not like it, but that cutting bread into individual slices would cause it to dry out too quickly. Otto Rohwedder was a determined character and countered this argument by inventing a device to hold the slices of bread together using hat pins. Not surprisingly this solution was short-lived as the pins kept falling out. Undefeated, he modified the design of his machine so that it would not only slice the bread but also wrap it.

Rohwedder, convinced of the commercial potential of his brainchild, persuaded a baker friend to give it a try. Frank Bench's bakery was not doing well at the time. He was facing bankruptcy and was willing to go along with the idea. On 7th July 1928 the first sliced loaf was sold in Chillico the, Missouri. Otto's thirteen-year-old son, Richard, fed it through what he later described as a 'Very peculiar-looking machine." Kleen Maid Sliced Bread was an instant success and Frank Bench's bakery increased its sales by 2000 per cent in two weeks A year later Otto Rohwedder was struggling to meet the huge demand of the previously sceptical bakers, describing himself as "utterly swamped with business." By 1933 eighty per cent of bread sold in the United States came ready-sliced and wrapped by one of Otto Rohwedder's machines Americans were smitten with both the taste and convenience and coined the now famous phrase "it's the best thing since sliced bread." In Britain the first sliced loaf appeared in 1930 under the Wonder bread label. Although scientists had started to extol the virtues of wholemeal flour, the demand for white sliced bread continued to grow on both sides of the Atlantic.

Change came again during the Second World War when, in the interests of economy, the slicing and wrap ping of bread was prohibited. In 1942 the shortage of shipping space for white flour meant that the British "National Loaf made its appearance. It was unsliced and made from grey wholemeal flour, resulting in an early version of today's brown bread. During the war years it became, of necessity, a major part of the staple British diet. It was never popular and the Ministry of Food tried its best to persuade the people that it wasn't so bad, insisting that it was helping to build the moral and physical strength of the nation. It was not until 1950 that the ban on wrapping and slicing bread was lifted. The hated "National Loaf" was finally abolished in 1956, two years after the end of wartime rationing. By 1961 bread-making in Britain had become a major manufacturing industry with large companies taking over from the small master bakers. New baking methods greatly reduced the time needed to produce a loaf. The long fermentation process was cut by the introduction of "high energy mixing," which had the added advantage of allowing a much greater proportion of home grown wheat to be used. White sliced bread once again became the nation's favourite.

The massive technological advances of the sixties progressed apace and the face of British society was changing. Substantial numbers of women started to go out to work and people no longer shopped everyday as they had in the previous decade. They bought fridges to keep food fresh and started to shop weekly in the new supermarkets instead of their local store. Post-war affluence was at its height and it is easy to see how the convenience of a long-lasting, sliced loaf fitted into this picture.