SIFTING THROUGH A CENTURY OF WONDER
WONDER UNCUT
In 1943, in the midst of a steel shortage, the government banned sliced bread, which was produced using large automated steel slicers. The ban was lifted two months later.
VITAL VITAMINS
With the rise of diseases like beriberi and pellagra, caused by vitamin deficiencies, white bread, produced with flour stripped of nutrients, was criticized as being empty food. Under government pressure, Wonder Bread added vitamins and minerals to its flour and touted its bread as “enriched.” In the early 1950s, it advertised that it “builds strong bodies eight ways.” By the end of the decade, the claim had grown to 12 ways.
WRITTEN IN AIR
As Taggart was getting ready to launch its new industrially processed loaf, company executive Elmer Cline was trying to dream up a name for it. At the International Balloon Race in Indianapolis, he found the answer when the sight of all those hot air balloons filled him with wonder. In 2001, Wonder Bread got its own hot air balloon.
THE WONDER YEARS
Perhaps the brand’s most successful slogan was “Make the most of their Wonder Years,” promoting the health benefits of feeding Wonder Bread to kids during the formative years up to age 12. The phrase seeped into the national consciousness. In 1988, writers Neal Marlens and Carol Black borrowed The Wonder Years for the title of their hit sitcom about growing up in 1960s suburbia.
BEST THING SINCE YOU-KNOW-WHAT
The first to bring sliced bread to America was the Chillicothe Baking Co. in Missouri in 1928. It advertised it as “the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.” Later, Wonder Bread kept up a steady campaign touting the virtues of its pre-sliced loaves. But comedian Red Skelton is believed to be the first to utter the phrase we all know today in a 1952 interview with the Salisbury Times in Maryland. Don’t worry about television, he told the reporter, “it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
BACK FROM THE BRINK
Wonder Bread vanished from shelves in 2012 with the bankruptcy of Hostess. But Flowers Foods of Thomasville, Georgia, bought the venerable brand about a year later and has been slowly returning it to stores.