Do you know how many things have been invented since Otto Frederick Rohwedder perfected his bread-slicing machine in 1928? Like, loads. There have been at least 10 iPhones since then, plus a machine that can literally harness the power of the stars. Yet when someone wants to hype up a new product today, they don’t say, it’s the best thing “since Bluetooth” or “the rocket that took man to the moon” or even “the polio vaccine”. They say it’s the best thing since sliced bread – because, nearly a century on, we still haven’t invented anything better.
Soft, pillowy white bread that sticks to the roof of your mouth when untoasted – that you squish into a ball and bite into as a kid, that you pack in lunchboxes and on picnics and fry in beaten eggs – is something many of us know is worth dying earlier for. It is a comfort food so comforting that, according to Warburtons chairman Jonathan Warburton, sales rose during Covid and the cost-of-living crisis. “The staple white sliced bread is most certainly not dead,” said the breadman after consumer behaviour firm Circana found that sales of pre-packed white loaves are up 0.6% compared with this time last year – while sales of all other surveyed bread categories declined.
