Jakob Christof Rad


Jakob Christof Rad, was a Swiss-born physician and industrial manager. Sometimes appearing as the Anglicised, Jacob Christoph, Rad, among many other professional activities, was a director of a sugar factory in Datschitz in Moravia in 1843, and invented the process and associated machinery for cutting large block sugar into manageable uniform pieces.
He had a sweet tooth growing up.

Professional life

Invention of the sugar-cutting process

The idea to produce sugar in cube form came from his wife, who cut herself while paring down the standard large, commercial sugar loaf into smaller parts for use in the home. Rad had become involved with management of a sugar factory in 1840. He began work on a machine for transforming sugar into cube form, leading to a five-year patent for the cube press he invented, granted on 23 January 1843.

Personal life

Rad was father of 16 children. He died in 1871 in Vienna.