Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. A prototype he built in 1917 was destroyed in a fire, and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready.
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Bread-slicing Machine
"Now that's the best thing since sliced bread!"
Most are familiar with the decades-old expression above, but few can name of the man who invented the bread-slicing machine that gave the world packaged, sliced bread in the 1920s.
The inventor of this ingenious device was Iowa native Otto Frederick Rohwedder, born July 6, 1880, in Des Moines. He grew up in Davenport, Iowa, and entered the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology in Chicago, from where he received a degree in optics in 1900. Rohwedder pursued a career as a jeweler, opening and operating three jewelry stores of his own in St. Joseph, Mo., until 1916. That year he sold his stores and moved back to his home town of Davenport, after he had become convinced that he had a brilliant idea.
His idea, which he began working on around 1912, was to create a bread slicer that would automatically cut loaves of bread into slices for consumers. He worked on several prototypes, including one that held a sliced loaf together with metal pins. This model and several others would prove unsuccessful, but his biggest challenge came in late 1917 when a fire destroyed Rohwedder's design blueprints at a Monmouth, Illinois, factory that had agreed to build his first slicing devices.
It would take several years for him to recoup his losses, but Rohwedder continued to make refinements to his design and found work as an investment and security agent. In the course of his research he realized that he would need to find a way to prevent a loaf of sliced bread from going stale. By 1927, he had devised a solution to this problem: a machine that would slice the bread and also wrap it.
At just about this time, in 1926, the pop-up toaster was just beginning to catch on in American households. This helped give Rohwedder just the boost he needed to get his latest version of the bread slicer off the ground. He filed for a patent on his new slicing-and-wrapping device (U.S. Patent No. 1,867,377 was issued to him on July 12, 1932) and sold his first machine to the Chillicothe Baking Company, in Chillicothe, Mo., in 1928. On July 7 of that year, the company sold its first loaf of sliced bread. Customers loved the product, which Chillicothe Baking Co. dubbed Kleen Maid Sliced Bread. Demand climbed swiftly; within a year, Rohwedder found himself scrambling to keep up with the pace of requests he was getting from bakeries to supply his slicing machines.
In 1929, just as he was getting his Davenport-based Mac-Roh Sales and Manufacturing Company up and running, the Great Depression hit. Rohwedder was forced to sell rights to his invention. Micro-Westco Co. of Bettendorf, Iowa, purchased the machines and hired Rohwedder to serve as a vice president and sales manager within its newly formed Rohwedder Bakery Machine Division. Sliced bread became more and more popular, but sales skyrocketed nationally beginning in 1930 when Wonder Bread began marketing and promoting sliced bread using its own specially designed equipment. By 1933, bakeries were selling more sliced bread than unsliced bread.
Rohwedder, meanwhile, had become known as the "father of sliced bread," and was invited to speak to groups around the country. He died in Concord, Mich., on Nov. 8, 1960. One of the first models of his original slicing machine is now housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
[March 2007]
Source: web.mit.edu
Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the bread slicer in 1928.
The first food slicer was a Chefs Choice 667. This was made around 1990.
chase brent James
to cut bread faster
Thor Björklund (a carpenter from Norway) invented the cheese slicer. After that, the cheese slicer has been improved many times. But in 1971, the cheese slicer was, for the first time, made as we know it nowadays. It was made by a company called Prodyne and was called the gourmet cheese slicer.
Thor Bjørklund made the cheese slicer.
Food slicers are good for many things. With a food slicer you can make more slices at once.
You can definitely use an electric food slicer to cut onions! The best place to buy an electric food slicer is at Fred Meyers, where they have them on sale all the week and for the rest of the month. To use it, follow the instructions that come with the electric food slicer.
Many people are becoming accustomed to the electronic knife. The electric food slicer is still the most commonly used for preparation slicer.
Amazon has a cheap price for Chef's choice sharpener for electric food slicer blades. This is where you can buy the cheapest Chef's Choice 498 Food Slicer.
As far as I can tell it was made in 1971
A cheese slicer is a kitchen utensil made especially to slice cheese cleanly and smoothly.
You can find an electric food slicer online at the following sites I found for you. www.nesco.com/products/Kitchen.../Electric-Food-Slicers/ , www.sears.com Appliances Small Kitchen Appliances
The average price for a Chef's Choice electric food slicer would be around a hundred dollars. These can be purchased at local retailers as well as online.
First of all, unplug the slicer. Get gloves, and take off the blade. Take apart the slicer parts, and use a cloth or sanitation cloth to clean the insides of the head.
what does a meat slicer do ??