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You're Toast: Company Will Stamp Your Face on Sliced Bread

The best innovation to sliced bread since ... sliced bread.

ByABC News
July 16, 2014, 2:54 PM
This intrepid reporter test-drove the technology. The subsequently processed selfie made a great impression.
This intrepid reporter test-drove the technology. The subsequently processed selfie made a great impression.
ABC News/Vermont Novelty Trading Corporation

— -- How do you take your toast? Lightly buttered? Slathered in jam? With your face on it?

Breakfast habits have always been personal. But those in the market for especially distinctive meals are no longer limited to a choice between white bread and multi-grain.

The Vermont Novelty Toast Corp. is now offering customers the opportunity to purchase a toaster that can stamp their selfie on sliced bread.

"I've been doing novelty toasters for four years now," company founder Galen Dively told ABC News.

In 2010, the Vermont Novelty Toast Corp. started rigging toasters to print logos and letters on bread. But it soon began to transfer more complicated images, deeply shaded graphics, and famous faces onto carbohydrates-as-canvases.

Still, Dively said he came up with the idea to produce toasted selfies only a few months ago after he attempted to engrave a plate with a self-styled photo of his son on a whim.

"It came out great," said Dively. "He loved it! And then he ate it."

The process is straightforward, Dively said. He downloads submitted snaps to his computer, manipulates color and contrast to ensure that photos can be imprinted on toast, and eliminates background elements. He then has a second computer turn images into files that a plasma cutter can read.

PHOTO: Toasters are fitted with customized plates before they are shipped to customers.
Toasters are fitted with customized plates before they are shipped to customers.

"We just press some buttons and [the selfie] is cut out of sheet metal." The toaster retails for $75 and ships for free.

Dively promised that the appliance is user-friendly, but he shared a few tips to ensure a superlative toast.

"You want to choose a bread that's not very airy. White bread works really well, but I've used Ezekiel bread. It all depends on the design, too. If the design has more fine details, then you really want to get a fine-grain bread."

But no matter the brand or breed, Dively claimed the "secret to great toast" is simple: "Real butter, no margarine."

Consider us impressed.

PHOTO: The Vermont Novelty Trading Corporation cuts individual steel plates to create custom toasters.
The Vermont Novelty Trading Corporation cuts individual steel plates to create custom toasters.