A Short History of the Toastie Maker

By toastiemaker.com · Updated 16 Oct 2026

The toastie maker grew out of the hand-held jaffle iron, patented in Australia in 1949, and became a household appliance when Australian company Breville launched its electric sandwich toaster in 1974. It reached British kitchens soon after, sold in huge numbers through the late 1970s and 1980s, and turned "Breville" into a nickname for the sealed toastie itself.

Timeline at a glance

Before electricity: fire irons and pie irons

People have pressed bread and fillings between hot metal for a long time. Long-handled toasting irons, held over a fire or range, were used in many countries, and in North America the hinged "pie iron" became a camping staple for sealed sandwiches and fruit pies. It's difficult to name a single inventor of the idea, and claims of a precise "first" toasted sandwich should be treated with caution.

What these devices had in common was the basic principle every toastie maker still uses: two hot plates, closed on a sandwich, crisping the outside while the filling heats.

1949: the Australian jaffle iron

The jaffle iron is usually credited to Dr Ernest Smithers, a doctor from Bondi in Sydney, who designed, named and patented it in 1949. (He had earlier patented the Surfoplane, a popular inflatable surf mat.) His cast-iron device pressed the edges of the bread together to seal in a hot filling, but didn't cut the sandwich in half — the classic jaffle is a single sealed pocket.

Jaffle irons became fixtures of Australian kitchens and campfires, and the word "jaffle" is still the Australian term for a sealed toasted sandwich. Modern versions in cast iron and aluminium are covered in our camping toastie maker guide, and the differences between jaffles and other toasted sandwiches in toastie vs grilled cheese.

1974: Breville goes electric

Breville, a Sydney electrical company founded in 1932, launched its electric sandwich toaster in Australia in 1974. The company's own telling of the story is that co-founder Bill O'Brien was inspired after seeing toasted sandwiches being made in Europe using a combination of appliances, and wanted one machine to do the job at home.

It was a hit. Sources commonly repeat that around 400,000 were sold in the first year, though that figure appears to trace back to the company and is hard to verify independently. Around 1976 Breville introduced the design feature that defines the British toastie: plates with a raised edge and diagonal ridge that cut the sandwich into two triangles and sealed each one. The machine is sometimes referred to by the name "Snack 'n' Sandwich", though naming varied by market and era.

The UK boom

Breville's sandwich toaster reached the UK and New Zealand soon after its Australian launch. We haven't found a reliable record of the exact UK launch year, but by the late 1970s and 1980s electric sandwich toasters were a common sight in British kitchens, a staple wedding present and a student essential.

The appliance suited the UK perfectly: square sliced white bread fitted the plates, cheddar melted beautifully, and the sealed edges meant baked beans could go inside. The brand became so closely linked with the machine that "a Breville" came to mean the sandwich toaster, and often the toastie itself — much as people still say "Hoover". For more on what makes the British toastie distinct, see what is a toastie?

From cut-and-seal to deep fill and beyond

Once the sandwich toaster was established, manufacturers competed on features. Deeper plates arrived to take more generous fillings and thicker bread — the format behind many of today's best sellers, including the modern Breville Deep Fill. Non-stick coatings improved, and ready lights, cool-touch handles and upright storage became standard.

Italian-style panini presses and contact grills gained popularity in British cafés and homes, offering flat, open-sided pressed sandwiches. George Foreman's grills, launched in the US in the 1990s and widely sold in the UK, blurred the line between toastie maker and grill (see toastie maker vs health grill).

More recent decades brought removable, often dishwasher-safe plates, 3-in-1 machines with swappable sandwich, waffle and grill plates, 4-slice family models and microwave toastie makers such as the Morphy Richards Mico for kitchens without worktop space. Our types of toastie makers guide explains each of these.

Why the toastie maker lasted

Plenty of 1970s gadgets disappeared. The sandwich toaster survived because it does one thing that's hard to replicate: it seals a sandwich so the filling stays put and gets properly hot. It's also cheap to buy, cheap to run (see toastie maker electricity cost) and fast. Toasties have even enjoyed a revival as café and street food, with specialist toastie bars and market stalls appearing in UK cities.

If the history has made you nostalgic, the brand that started it is still going strong — see our Breville toastie maker guide — or compare every option in the best toastie makers in the UK.