The Best Thing Since…

In honor of one of the simplest, yet best innovations of all time, let’s celebrate July 7th as “Sliced Bread Day”.  82 years ago today, Otto Rohwedder sold the first loaf of pre-sliced bread made by his innovative new machine.  Rohwedder had been working on the machine for 16 years, and it was a secondary problem that he needed to solve before it became a success. Slicing the bread was not the issue, but keeping the bread fresh was the more important factor.  He was only successful once he developed a part of the machine that wrapped the sliced bread in wax paper immediately, thereby packaging it fresh for sale.  Two years later, Wonder Bread commercialized the idea and the rest is history.  Good innovations don’t become great until all the angles are covered. Rohwedder stuck at it for 16 years.  Perseverance pays.