1. 99 per cent of UK households buy bread. British men eat 50 per cent more bread than women.
2. The ancient Egyptians first used yeast as a leavening agent in bread-making around 4000BC.
3. A combine harvester can harvest enough wheat to make 100 loaves in about 13 seconds.
4. Although bread-slicers were known since the 1860s, it was not until Otto Rohwedder of Iowa invented a machine to slice and wrap bread in 1928 that sliced bread became generally available.
5. A 1928 advert called sliced bread, “The greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.”
6. However the precise phrase, “Best thing since sliced bread” was first recorded in the late 1960s.
7. “He who controls a nation’s bread is a greater ruler than he who controls their souls,” (Louis IV, 10th century King of France).
8. Since the 17th century bread has been used to clean the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
9. People in Turkey eat more bread than any other European country, 104kg (229lb) a year per person.
10. The average Briton eats only 32kg (70lb) a year.