Most Of Us Buy This Food First Offered For Sale In Missouri

I was recently looking at an article from Only In Your State talking about 8 Unique Trivia Facts About Missouri You Might Not Have Heard Before. Well, being a Missouri native, and also someone who writes a lot about Missouri, I knew most of them. However, I didn't know this. Do you want to know?

Missouri is the home of sliced bread. More specifically Chillicothe, Missouri is the home of sliced bread. That's right, the town where you could first get your bread sliced is Chillicothe.

According to Visit Chillicothe, a Chillicothe baker was the first to introduce sliced bread. Now, that baker didn't invent the bread slicer. And Missouri can't lay claim to being the home of the man who invented the bread slicer. That claim to fame goes to Iowa and inventor Otto Rohwedder.

Yet, much like Ray Kroc didn't imagine McDonald's into existence, he took the McDonald Brother's invention of a restaurant that could massively pump out burgers, fries, and Coca-Colas, and revolutionized fast food. This Chillicothe baker did the same thing with the Rohwedder Bread Slicer, yet, unlike, Kroc, his innovation of selling sliced bread was almost lost to history.

According to NPR affiliate KCUR, Rohwedder at the supposed end of his life went all in on his bread-slicing machine, however, he had a hard time finding anyone who would use it. Then Rohwedder reconnected with an old friend who also was an inventor and entrepreneur in Chillicothe, Frank Bench.

Bench agreed to give the machine a try, and they put an ad in the paper that proclaimed, "The greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped — a fine loaf sold a better way.” The advertisement then went on to acknowledge that sliced bread was a novel idea but boldly predicted it would be a big refinement in the bakery's bread service.

According to KCUR, Bench's Bakery sold a lot more bread, 2,000 percent more bread to be exact.

Neither man became rich off the invention. Bench lost his bakery during the Great Depression, and Rohwedder, who lived much longer than expected, sold his patent rights to the Micro Westco Company and joined the Bakery Machine Division, which they named after him.

Today, Missouri celebrates Rohwedder's invention, and Bench's idea to sell sliced bread on July 7, Sliced Bread Day, an official holiday in Missouri.

Think about that the next time you're making a sandwich!