The Start of Queal

Update: Current Queal is at version 4.0, let’s keep on innovating!

“What if we could replace food with a shake that has a perfect mix of nutrition?” That is the question Onno Smits and Floris Wolswijk, founders of Queal had in June 2014. Since humans were already flying rockets into space, mapped the human genome and built towers 1 kilometre into the sky, how come we haven’t perfected nutrition? So we started our research into powdered food.

The Idea – Full nutrition in a powder

Soon we found out that other people had been thinking about the same idea for a long time. One that stood out was Rob Rhinehart, CEO of Soylent. In February 2013 he started a 30-day experiment with powdered food. In May 2014, after a big campaign on Tilt (an alternative Kickstarter) he started shipping. Now everyone from programmers to busy executives in the USA (and Canada) can enjoy Soylent.

Rhinehart not only founded a company, he started a powdered food revolution. The recipe was published online on a DIY forum and interested people were encouraged to tinker with the recipe to fit their own specific needs. From this experimentation some creative imitators followed. Some of them focussed on the keto diet, others made complete cookies. Nowadays more than 30.000 people eat powdered foods every day. Europe in the meantime hadn’t found out about powdered foods, yet. Just as in the USA it’s difficult for people in Europe to get a good nutritional balance out of their normal food. Many people are overweight and others have trouble eating breakfast in the morning. Queal, amongst others, wanted to start solving this problem in Europe.

Humble Beginnings – Queal starts in August 2014

Over the summer of 2014 we started experimenting with the formula for Queal. There was already a lot of information available from the DIY community, but we looked further and went deep into the food literature. Next to that we fully conform to the EU guidelines on nutrition. Read more about this here.

Then in July 2014 after consulting with nutrition experts we rented an office. One office was converted to the production facility (think: white lab coats and many scales, Dutch FDA authority compliant), the other was used for administration. Back then our company consisted of 3 people, now more than 10 people work at Queal.

Our earliest customers found us via Reddit and other fora. We are forever grateful for their feedback and loyalty to Queal. Based on their feedback and our own experience we made slight changes to our formula, changed the packaging and switched shipping providers. Thanks to our earliest customers we can now proudly say that we believe we are the best provider of powdered food in Europe.

Our USP’s – Quick, Tasty and Complete

We aren’t the only provider of powdered food in Europe and we know that. Therefore we aim to excel in three areas: speed, flavour and recipe. We ship the same or next day and have never had a major backlog. And of course Queal itself is quick, just one minute to make and only a few to drink it – giving you time to do more important things.

From the start we have bought the best flavours we could find out there. All ingredients are sourced in Europe. From the start we’ve put a priority on offering multiple flavours and currently have 7 different ones. Once every few months you can decide on a new flavour!

Overarching in our mission is to give you the security of a complete nutritious meal. We want you to feel secure in eating just right. With plenty of fibres, protein and all essential vitamins and minerals we offer you complete nutrition in a drinkable meal.

Market Leader – Fast growth and quick scaling

After an initial phase of having the production (mixing) of Queal at our own location we decided to work together with a production partner. Our nutritional consultant and their team worked hard behind the scenes to make Queal 3.0 possible. From July 2015 onward the formula is fine-tuned and shipping times should be even better (1-4 days depending on your country).

With production moved to another part of Rotterdam we can now focus on our two most important tasks. That is to service you – the customer (responses within one day), and let other people know about Queal (e.g. marketing). Of course we will always be incorporating feedback about Queal and make the product even better.

In the near future our aim is to be the market leader in Europe. With our dedicated team of employees and great customers we are confident that we will achieve this goal. Queal will always be developing and feel free to come back to this page on a later date, or check out more about our company.

Our Mission Statement: “Make people’s lives more effective and improve health, by getting a simple and top-quality nutritional option in every household.”