As long as we are talking of bread
slicing, The world’s first automatic bread slicer was invented by
Otto Frederick Rohwedder in Davenport, Iowa. He first built a
prototype of his bread slicer in 1912. Unfortunately, his blueprints
and machine were destroyed in a fire in 1917. It took him until 1927
to re-build the machine and produce a model ready to use in an
actual bakery.
The first pre-sliced loaf of bread using his machine, was sold on
July 7, 1928. A friend of Rohwedders installed a bread slicing
machine at the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri. Sliced bread
sales skyrocketed.
Pre-sliced bread became a national hit thanks to Wonder Bread, then
owned by Continental Baking, who began commercially producing the
pre-sliced bread in 1930 using a modified version of Rohwedder’s
machine. Crumb is a term bakers use to define the part of bread
inside the crust. Unrelated, Jackie Gleason called his
drinking buddies crumb bums.