19281776 Club
Chillicothe bakery sells the first machine-sliced loaves; Rohwedder's invention reaches the public on his 48th birthday
The Kleen Maid Sliced Bread hits shelves today, cut by Otto Rohwedder's automatic slicer, as the company calls it "the greatest forward step in baking since bread was wrapped."
Before 1928, every American loaf came whole, and every household sliced its own. On July 7 of that year, the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri, sold the first loaves cut by Otto Rohwedder's automatic bread-slicing machine, on Rohwedder's 48th birthday. The company advertised its Kleen Maid Sliced Bread as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped." Within five years, roughly 80 percent of bread sold in the United States came pre-sliced…
