Otto Frederick Rohwedder

Otto Frederick Rohwedder (July 7, 1880 – November 8, 1960) was an American inventor and engineer who created the first automatic bread-slicing machine for commercial use. It was first used by the Chillicothe Baking Company.

Rohwedder was born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1880, the son of Claus and Elizabeth Rohwedder, of ethnic German descent. He was the second youngest of four brothers and a sister.

Rohwedder and his family lived in Davenport, where he resided until the age of 21. He attended Davenport public schools. He then became an apprentice to a jeweler to learn a trade.

Rohwedder also studied optometry, graduating in 1900 with a degree in optics from what is now the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology in Chicago. He became a jeweler.

Rohwedder married Carrie Johnson in 1905. They settled in St. Joseph, Missouri, and had two children.

Rohwedder first had a brief career as a jeweler, and became the owner of three jewelry stores in St. Joseph. He used his work with watches and jewelry to invent new machines. Convinced he could develop a bread slicing machine, he sold his jewelry stores to fund the development effort and manufacture the machines. In 1917 a fire broke out at the factory where Rohwedder was manufacturing his machine. It destroyed his prototype and blueprints. With the need to get funding again, Rohwedder was delayed for several years in bringing the bread slicer to market.

In 1927 Rohwedder successfully designed a machine that not only sliced the bread but wrapped it. He applied for patents to protect his invention and sold the first machine to a friend and baker Frank Bench, who installed it at the Chillicothe Baking Company, in Chillicothe, Missouri, in 1928. The first loaf of sliced bread was sold commercially on July 7, 1928. Sales of the machine to other bakeries increased and sliced bread became available across the country.

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