Facts about bread in the UK

 Here are some facts about bread.

Bread production and sales

• Bread remains one of the UK’s favourite foods, with 99% of households buying bread and the equivalent of nearly 12 million loaves are sold each day.

• Each year 99 bread products are purchased per household. Men eat bread more frequently than women: 44% of men eat bread twice a day compared with 25% of women.

• White bread accounts for 76% of the bread sold in the UK

• Large bakeries, which produce wrapped and sliced bread, account for 80% of UK bread production. In store bakeries produce about 17% of bread, with the remainder accounted for by high street bakeries. Bread is wrapped and sliced for convenience, for keeping qualities and value for money.

• Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the first slice-and-wrap bread machine in 1928. He sold his pre-sliced, wrapped bread in a bakery at Battle Creek, Michigan. By 1933 80% of all bread sold in the US was sliced and wrapped the phrase ‘the best thing since sliced bread’ was coined. Sliced bread was first introduced into the UK in the 1930s.