We’re always looking to improve.
Our brand and products are built on iterative design. We believe small improvements over time build up to something big. In this manner, we can listen to our customers and provide the product they want.
In an effort to be as transparant as possible, we want to communicate openly about our efforts. On this page, you can find previous-, current-, and future projects that we are working on. We are always looking to improve, collecting feedback, and investigating new avenues of innovation.
Timeline.
In the timeline set out below, you'll find a whole host of past, present, and potential future improvement-projects.
View previous years' timelines by selecting the corresponding years.
July 2014
The start of Queal. July 23st 2014
At the 23st of July 2014, Floris and Onno first discussed the idea of starting Queal during a friendly game of chess. Only 6 days after - on the 29th of July 2014, at 9:32AM to be exact, they registered the company at the Chamber of Commerce in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Over the coming weeks, they would perfect the recipe, build the website, and order supplies. A company was born!
August 2014
First Queal order. August 6th 2014
The Queal website went live on the 6th of August 2014 and our first order was placed that same day.
Q4 2014
Fast iterative improvements. Q4 2014
After the 'official' launch of Queal at the end of September, the remainder of 2014 saw a whole slew of improvements. The introduction of same-day shipping, several upgrades of our production facility, new bag stickers, and a meriad of recipe changes, based on customer feedback.
March 2015
Hello Hummingbird. March 2015
The hummingbird-logo that would be used by Queal for the next 3 years made its first appearance in March 2015. Although no longer in use, its legacy lives on in the wing-design logo we use now.
The hummingbird was chosen for its small size, fast and agile movements, as well as its (mostly) liquid diet of flower-nectar.
July 2015
Major changes. July 9th 2015
After slow and steady improvements over time, July 2015 marked a large shift in 'professionalism' for Queal as a company. A recipe update (no more separate oil bottles!), as well as new pouches and branding, was a major leap forwards for the production quality of Queal. The new recipe and packaging was made possible due in part by our partnering with an outside production facility.
At this same moment in time, we also outsourced our fulfilment to an offsite warehouse. This lowered our shipping costs drastically. It also meant we could now have same-day shipping for nearly any country up to 21:30 at night!
November 2015
First Limited Edition. November 30th 2015
Spectacular Speculoos was our first ever Limited Edition, creating a new staple concept in the entire Complete Food market. The idea proved highly popular, and from here on, many awesome Limited Edition flavours followed.
July 2016
Colour change. January 2016
We started 2016 off fresh with a new coat of paint. Our hummingbird-logo, and our entire website, were updated with improved visuals. This included a change in colour-scheme, to the teal colours we still use today.
July 2016
WundrBar crowdfunding. July 25th 2016
On July 25th 2016, we launched a crowdfunding campaign to be able to start the production of our WundrBars (later replaced by our GO bars), a complete meal in a bar. We succesfully raised €50.000 in a few weeks time.
November 2016
Fully Printed Pouches. November 1s 2016
Our first fully printed pouches appeared on the scene at this momentous date. Sporting a large version of our hummingbird logo, and a metallic sheen, the bags were quite eye-catching!
The CREATE MORE slogan was also first introduced around this time. We wanted to highlight all the secondary benefits from Queal, and how that was where the real added value from Queal lies. More time, more energy, more money, more everything!
April 2017
Boost arrives. April 2017
The first iteration of our nootropic supplement Boost was released at this time. We now sell the updated version of Boost as Flow.
May 2017
Final flavour farewell. May 2017
Around this time, Crazy Chocolate Peanut got replaced with one of our previous and very successful Limited Editions: Chocolate Hazelnut Happiness.
This was the last major flavour change/addition to our regular permanent line-up. Since then, only a meriad of Limited Edition flavours have come and gone.
July 2017
Savoury Queal flavours. July 2017
We first had 'Pizza Party' Limited Edition back in early 2016, with a pizza Margerita-flavour. This had, shall we say, unfavourable reviews. However, after many requests from our customers, we decided to retry developing a savoury flavour...
And thus we introduced Bangin' Bacon and Tasty Tomato as savoury Limited Editions in July of 2017. Unfortunately, our customer base had the same general lackluster response as last time. Savoury flavours with our shakes simply doesn't seem to work out.
August 2017
Welcome Dashboard. August 2017
In August 2017, our user dashboard went live. The dashboard provides you with lots of useful information and cool stats about your Queal use. It’s also the place where our awesome Queal customers can save and earn points to get free rewards.
Complete Food Survey. August 2017
To generate some more insights on why, how and when the pioneers of complete foods consume their meals, we collaborated with our friendly neighbour competitor Saturo and set up the Complete Food Survey 2017.
January 2018
Let's GO! January 2018
In this month, we released our first ever GO bar in the delicious taste of Dark Chocolate.
CookingNerds live January 2018
Did you know that our Queal products are multi-use? With our CookingNerds website we want to show you what other cool things you can make with Queal products. Tinker along with Steady to make your own smoothies, pancakes, brownies, and so on!
You can visit it from the bottom menu (or the link above) and we will integrate it more into our social media communication.
Steady in the US. January 2018
Our US warehouse also opened this month, offering our Steady shakes in America for the first time. (at this moment we handle everything from our EU warehouse)
February 2018
Queal Vegan. February 2018
Another new product launched in February, when our Vegan Steady shakes made their first appearance. Banana Mania was the first flavour to be introduced.
March 2018
The 5.0. Recipe. March 2018
Focussing more on nutrition and the environment, we released our 5.0. Steady recipe in March of 2018.
April 2018
A second Vegan flavour. April 2018
After the great success of our first Vegan release, we decided to also add a plant based version of our Smooth Vanilla to Steady’s product line up.
May 2018
The start of our rebranding. May 2018
At the beginning of May, we announced our rebranding and already released our redesigned website and other visual brand outings.
Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Happiness. May 2018
And then there were three of them!
Pillar Pages appear. May 2018
Here at Queal we want to be transparent both ways, showing you what we’re still working on as well as sharing what we’re proud of. We designed our products to be as healthy and convenient as possible and wanted to offer you both an informative as fun way to look into what (personal) positive impacts your Queal-use has. Therefore, you can now find information and statistics about health, costs, and (sustainable) impacts in your Dashboard.
And to help make the concept of Queal more understandable to people visiting our website for the first time, our Convenient, Customizable and Sustainable pillar pages went live this month.
June 2018
Welcome Flow! June 2018
In the first week of June, we introduced Flow. A nutritional supplement (nootropic) that helps you to concentrate better and will increase your productivity.
Premium shaker. June 2018
After some extensive research and feedback rounds with customers, we selected the MOUS shaker as our new premium shaker option.
GO nuts! June 2018
Our second flavour of GO bars made its entrance in our webshop at the end of june. To celebrate the release of this delicious savoury Nuts & Seasalt flavour, we created some cool GIF’s!
July 2018
Rebranded pouches. July 2018
As one of the steps in our rebranding, the first of our redesigned pouches started being sent out. These pouched feature an innovative new closing system, utilizing velcro-like easy-open and re-sealing.
August 2018
Unboxing challenges. August 2018
To provide our customers with some extra unboxing excitement, a special page with lots of cool challenges went live this month. Want to earn some extra QP’s? Go take a look!
Instant Oats Beta Test. August 2018
After a lot of brainstorms, testing, tweaking and tuning ourselves, we started sending out beta samples of our newest Instant Oats product to a few of our lucky customers. We hope to gather valuable feedback that we'll use to further develop this exciting new addition to our product line-up!
September 2018
Complete Food Survey. September 2018
Again in 2018 we led the Complete Food Survey and saw 3x more respondents from all over the world. Learn how people use Complete Foods and what they would like to see in the future. Complete Food Survey 2018.
October 2018
More consistent stock. October 2018
For the past couple months we’ve had multiple instances where two or more flavours of a diet type were sold out simultaneously. Furthermore, in some cases, these flavours were out of stock for up to two weeks.
Obviously this is regrettable every time it happens. We pride ourselves on our quick shipping (same-day shipping up to 21:30 at night!). Having something be out-of-stock is directly antithetical to this value.
There are several causes for this. Among others, it’s gotten harder to predict what people want to buy in the coming weeks, as we have a wider range of products on offer. And we’re still growing quicker than expected (thank you!).
We’re solving this issue now, by changing our logistics and having a larger ‘reserve’ of products in stock on hand at all times. This is more overhead costs for us, but we think it’s worth it, not to have to change an item to ‘out-of-stock’ on the website.
November 2018
Ready Launch. November 2018
At the beginning of this month, we announced the start of the Ready “Berry Good” pre-sales. For more than four weeks, people interested in the newest complete food innovation were able to pre-order Ready instant oat meal at a reduced price. Once we had reached 5.000 meals sold, we would also launch a second Ready flavour: ‘Carrot Break’. And yes, we did reach this goal! Moreover, we pre-sold 7.677 meals to 222 complete food enthusiasts. What about you, are you ready for Ready?
Improving our love letters. November 2018
We have been working on our current email system to provide you with the most relevant and also nice-to-read information. One of the emails we send out automagically are the tracking emails. Most of you appreciate the pop-culture themed emails telling you we’ve received your order and that we’re working hard to get it to your doorstep. You’ll probably find some new and enjoyable iterations on this email in your inbox once you’ve placed a new order.
The return of Spectacular Speculoos. November 2018
For the past two years, Spectacular Speculoos made its return around the time of Sinterklaas and falling leaves. Also this year, we’ve decided to make this - quite popular - Limited Edition available again.
Pricing update. November 2018
We've updated the pricing of Queal. Our goal for the update is to make the pricing more transparent and easier to understand. We've updated the shipping prices (lower for many countries), removed the confusing bulk discounts, and increased the subscription discount to 15%. In this blog, we explain each of these changes and add some examples to highlight what it would mean in different scenarios. In the near future we’ll be working on improving the communication of this pricing, as well as shipping costs and -times throughout the website.
Supply chain page. November 2018
The last couple of weeks we have been working on a clear explanation of where our ingredients come from, how they are manufactured, and how all the ingredients in the end are combined to make the Queal mixture as is. On our Supply Chain page, you will find flowcharts with all relevant information about the ingredient production processes. This way, it makes it easier to understand and explain to third parties what’s in Queal.
December 2018
Re-inventing customer calls. December 2018
We've had a hundred calls with our customers in the past months to learn more about their needs, interests, and - of course - also for gathering feedback. We decided to change the way we invite our customers to participate in our calls. From now on, we'll invite a bunch of customers when we've got something interesting or when there are urgent questions that need to be answered.
2019's Limited Editions. December 2018
With the next "flavours testing day" coming up in early 2019, we decided to open a topic on our forum to let our customers share their ideas about possible future Limited Editions. Also, was possible to vote for your favourite previous Limited Edition - the most popular of which we'd re-introduce in the upcoming months!
The about us page. December 2018
Our brand new company page is live! This page is all about Queal as a company. It shows you what we stand for, what impact we want to make with Queal and how it all started back in 2014. If you'd like to get to know us better, feel free to head over to this page to find out more about us and the Queal community.
QuealBot is here! December 2018
Bleep bloop! QuealBot is here to help you out. Having difficulties with finding what products will suit you best or do you just want to learn more about our product range or what shaker you should pick? QuealBot is available 24/7 to help you out.
January 2019
Ready as part of the Try-out deal January 2019
An easy and low-threshold way to get to know all we have to offer at Queal is by ordering a Try-out deal. In early 2019 we updated the Try-out deal to include the new Ready product, upping the discount to 36% discount on the whole package.
New Year's Resolution packages January 2019
Just like at the end of 2017/the beginning of 2018, we offered our New Year's Packages this year. A great success once again, for both new Complete Food Enthusiasts as well as our most loyal customers. We hope your year is filled with a lot of happy Queal moments :)
February 2019
Shipping cost reduction February 2019
We looked into all our current shipping partners and arrangements to see if we could find better deals or improve the quality of the shipping. We ended up with a significant reduction of shipping costs for Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Hungary.
A/B tests on the website February 2019
We've made some changes to simplify the website navigation and to make it more understandable. Especially on mobile decives, navigation was improved. Together with experienced UX designers we've changed the payment page and let the shop pages showcase our products better. The loading times have been reduced as well!
March 2019
A new Limited Edition planning March 2019
This month, it was time to hit the lab again. Together with our food scientist, we’ve created some new possible Limited Edition flavours and of course we had to try out all of them. A full day of tasting brought us a year worth of new, exciting and well-approved Limited Editions, of which at least one will be vegan.
May 2019
The launch of our Transparency Hub May 2019
After focussing on (possible) new customers during the #quickie campaign, we decided that the next one would be for the already-Quealers. The eventual idea was in the back of our heads for quite some time already: we wanted to create a place on which we could combine the answering of customer’s questions, snippets of our informative blog posts and video content. Also - although we already have our Supply Chain and Sustainability pages - we learned that some of our awesome Quealers longed for a more complete overview of everything queal-complete-meals related. The whole road from A to Z, from the ingredients to how everything is distributed and how others use the products. So we’ve created it and called it our Transparency Hub. On this page, we’ve gathered our content around the topics of Ingredients, Production, Packaging, Distribution and Use and if there’s something you miss, you can just submit your own question!
Limited Edition Design Contest May 2019
Along with the launch of our Transparency Hub, we’ve started a Limited Edition Design contest. The idea for this started when thinking about how to really show you our product development process. Along with writing about how our road to READY, and the steps we take when creating a pouch of STEADY, we thought: why not really show you? So we will! A few lucky Quealers will have the chance to develop their own product with us, and we’ll document every step here.
Sturdier medium boxes May 2019
We’ve changed our boxes and their designs with our rebranding last year but noticed that the medium-sized sometimes was a little too weak. So, to make sure your shakes, bars, nootropics and oat meal pots arrive safely, we’ve shifted to a sturdier cardboard material.
June 2019
The Queal Ambassador Package June 2019
At the beginning of 2019, we've conducted a Word Of Mouth research. We spoke to a lot of different Queal customers by phone and discover how and why you talk or do not talk about Queal or Complete Foods in general. One of the insights coming from these interviews was that some of your friends and/or family members do want to try complete foods, but do not feel ready to place their own order yet. Because we think that our current Quealers are the best ambassadors we could wish for we started to look into ways we could provide you with a sample to give away. As we sell a lot of different flavours and diet types though, this was no easy job. Luckily we came up with the idea of an empty sample bag, one you can fill with one portion (or less) yourself and then give away. This sample bag, together with an extra shaker and a little explanation card forms the Queal Ambassador Package. You can add the Ambassador Package from your second order, the option will appear after the check out process of your own order.
Want to learn more about the Ambassador Package or did you already order one yourself? Check out this forum thread and leave your questions & feedback!
What we're working on Ongoing improvements
We continue developing our product line-up and these are some of the things we're working on right now. There are no fixed deadlines, but these are the ones we're actively working towards.
Calorie counter
Calorie calculator on website.
There’s been a few requests for a calorie calculator on the Queal website, or at least a more detailed explanation about the caloric intake one might need, and which Queal Steady diet type may be most appropriate for a particular customer. We’ll be working on implementing this in the future. Most probably on the Steady product page, as well ain the reworked Dashboard (new features coming soon).
Student subscription
Student subscription.
We have a large number of awesome full-time student customers! Depending on where you live, Queal can be a more expensive meal relative to your average student food-fare (e.g. instant noodles, microwave meals, etc.). Because we want to support our up-and-coming generations (and because, from a business perspective, students are a great potential customer base for Queal), we’re committing to researching a potential marketing campaign including a fixed discount for any students enrolled at registered educational institutions. This may take a fair amount of time still, to come to fruition.
Queal vs. Other Foods
Queal vs. Other Foods
A little while ago, Jiska conducted research on how you Quealers talk about our brand and complete foods in general. The reason for this was (or is, actually) that we've noticed explaining the purpose of Complete Food, and how it functions, to friends or family can be hard. One of the outcomes of the research was the want for a broad nutritional comparison of Queal (STEADY) versus other quick and ready-to-eat meals. With this overview, you will be able to absorb a lot of useful information about nutrition yourself AND show it to everyone that might be interested. The overview is coming soon, stay tuned!
Packaging
Eco friendly packaging.
Our current Steady pouches contain two different materials: plastic and aluminium. This means, the packaging is categorised as ‘other’ and can’t be recycled with other plastic materials in many countries. Because we strive for as little environmental impact as possible, a new packaging material will be used for producing our pouches starting later this year or next year (2020). By then, our pouches will be entirely made of one material: PET 1 and suitable for 100% recycling everywhere. To make this transformation as gradual as possible we decided not to go for a temporary, intermediate, solution.
Boxes
Better filling of the boxes.
We noticed sometimes our boxes aren’t filled optimally. When introducing the newly designed boxes, we calculated how many bags would fit in and set up guidelines. Recently we reached out to the warehouse to remind them of these guidelines and they will keep an eye on it in the future. We also spoke to our supplier of boxes and will, sometime in the future, have boxes that can be adjusted in height/volume.
Shaker
Shaker cap.
With our rebranding of this years we’ve changed the brand design of our shakers. Although we really like its looks this way, we’re aware of the problem that is occuring with the cap: it is not dishwasher proof, quickly deforms and therefore sometimes won’t fit properly anymore after some time of use.
For a future production batch of shakers we promise we’ll pay more attention to this. Maybe even search for a dishwasher proof shaker that fits our branding. In the meantime, please hand wash your shaker and/or pay attention when closing.
Go
Dark Chocolate GO bars.
Due to troubles with our current bar manufacturer, we have decided to bring production of our Dark Chocolate GO bar to our powder production facility. These guys will allow us to produce a new delicious, complete, and vegan Dark Chocolate GO bar. The major changes will be made regarding the top layer, whereby milk protein will make place for plant-based protein.
Also, a new bar is on its way to follow up the Nuts & Seasalt. This Nuts & ... bar is now (July 2019) being tested and almost ready for production.
Dashboard
Dashboard improvements.
Our Queal Dashboard was launched almost exactly one year ago. We’ve heard time and again from you guys that the transparency and order management features it provides are very useful. To us as well, the Dashboard has been very useful, in opening up communication lines between us and our customers. The feedback questions especially have helped shape our ‘executive decisions’ in the past year.
There are very many improvements to be made with the Dashboard however. The original version that went live a year ago, was always supposed to be only a ‘beta’ version, a quick-and-dirty put together version, for which we had big plans.
These plans never really came to fruition though, as our main focus lay with our product development and customer service (as it should!). We’re now at a point in time where we feel comfortable continuing work on the Queal Dashboard. We’ve already started working on our ‘Version 2.0’ of the Queal User Dashboard. Here’s a few of the points of feedback that we’ve heard a lot, that are currently being implemented (the 2.0 Dashboard is now in beta-testing, just opt-in when you're on the Dashboard).
Make it Faster.
The current Dashboard can take quite some time to load, especially if you have been a customer for a long time. We’ll be working to greatly reduce the loading time, and/or have the loading be more elegantly executed, rather than an empty screen with a ‘hung’ browser.
Improved Feedback Question System.
We want to start using our Feedback Questions system even more/better in the future. This requires some improvements though, including adding optional questions (skipping questions), follow-up questions, or variable-specific questions (based on shipping country, your diet-type preference, or whether or not you’ve ordered a specific product before, for instance).
Improved overall design.
The Queal Dashboard started as something of a ‘hobby’-project within the company. We don’t have dedicated programmers on the job, but are doing it ourselves. As we’ve built more of it, we’ve learned more about interaction design, the importance of consistency, etc. With the new ‘Version 2.0’ we are completely overhauling the design. Focus is on bringing it in line with the website design, and making it more mobile-friendly.
Queal Dashboard App.
With a focus on mobile-first design, we’re hoping to release an app-version of the Dashboard relatively soon after the launch of the new Dashboard version as well.
‘Live’ Queal Meal Tracking.
We will make it possible to track your Queal meals in the new version of the Dashboard. This will be optional and will give you more precise information on your consumption.
Improved Loyalty Gifts System.
Our customers can save up Queal Points on the Dashboard, which allows them to receive some free gifts every now and then. These gifts become more awesome as they get a higher Level. Currently the system is quite confusing, and we think it could be made much easier to use and explain. We’ll be keeping you updated on our ideas about this, once we know more.
Improved Subscripion Management.
We are already very happy with the current subscription management system’s functionality. The main problem with it currently, is the rather unclear way in which the subscription total is broken down into its subsequent parts, and where and how the subscription- and or bulk-discounts apply. We’ll be working to improve this substantially, as part of the Dashboard rework.
Product Pilots
Run product pilots.
We’ve got some awesome new product ideas and we thought it would be fun to launch these ideas among some lucky customers first. The beta test of Ready showed us how valuable (and fun) it is to get the product tested by some enthusiastic Queal-ers and thereafter make some final changes. Keep an eye on your inbox and find out if you’re among the lucky few to try out something new!
More coming soon!