Transparency Hub
how Queal is made
From ingredients to awesome recipes!





Poll results.
The winning flavours!13% |
Peach Party
Fresh mix of the typical oaty Queal-taste combined with the taste of peaches and nectarines.
Submitted by M.
|
![]() |
12% |
Pure Passion
The passionfruit and lime gives you a fresh and fruity Queal, perfect for lovely spring and summer days. The hint of white chocolate will make this mix surprising and original. This velvety addition will make sure you can enjoy it in autumn and winter just as much.
Submitted by Irene
|
![]() |
11% |
Glorious Ginger vs. Lovely Lemon
In an epic battle for your taste buds Glorious Ginger goes to war with Lovely Lemon. The result is a refreshing Queal taste with a twist and a lot of character.
To soothe this battle of giants a bit of honey enters the fray. Sour, sweet, fresh, zesty, earthy and biting: this one has it all. All hail the new Queal taste.
Submitted by Maarten
|
![]() |
11% |
Delicious Doughnut
Delicious Doughnut would taste like a fresh, smooth, sweet and plain simple sugar icing glazed doughnut.
If we make this, there could be some variations on the plain flavor, like chocolate, cinnamon, caramel, etc, doughnut. Awesome!
Submitted by Miguel
|
![]() |
11% |
Strawberry Colada
An actual strawberry colada would have rum in it, though, so I'm thinking a tiny, small hint of essence of rum (not actual rum) or something would do the trick to top off and balance the flavour.
Submitted by L.
|
![]() |
11% |
Crème brûlée
The first sip is like tasting the crunchy and caramelized brown sugar topping, which was burnt with a blow torch.
With the second sip, you get that sweet, creamy taste and smooth texture, with a few hints of cinnamon, vanilla, and a zest of lemon to provide a balance. Can be enjoyed with or without macaroons.
Submitted by Thibault
|
![]() |
7% |
Rhubarb and Custard
To complement the already sweet and creamy taste of the standard Steady base.
Submitted by D.
|
![]() |
5% |
Honey and Rum
Honey, rum in an awesome blend. Rum essence, you can add the 'real' rum yourself.
Submitted by Teemu
|
![]() |
4% |
Heavenly Hummus
Hummus tastes good when cold or at room temperature, and its texture is closer to a shake than say bacon. So it might succeed where other savory attempts have faltered.
Submitted by Raf
|
![]() |
4% |
Supersweet Cinnamon Apple
Apple parts with maple syrup and sprinkled with cinnamon.
Submitted by C.
|
![]() |
4% |
Refreshing Rhubarb
There is nothing as refreshing as rhubarb compote on a hot summers day, the perfect balance between sweet and sour(tart), perhaps mixed with a bit of ginger or vanilla.
Submitted by K.
|
![]() |
4% |
Crazy Cuberdon
Once you have tasted this traditional 'Little Nose' candy from Ghent, it's all you want to eat!
Submitted by Lynn
|
![]() |
4% |
Mulled Wine
Red wine with cinnamon, clove, lemon, orange, nutmeg, star anise, and raisins.
Submitted by Petr
|
![]() |
![]() |
Golden Ticket Limited Editions live!
|
![]() |
Golden Ticket winners finalized their feedback after two sample rounds.
|
|
Julian just submitted a new question.
|
![]() |
We answered Petra's question about RTD's.
|
|
Petra just submitted a new question.
|
![]() |
P. just submitted a new question
|
![]() |
E. just submitted a new question.
|
![]() |
The first couple Golden Ticket holders have contacted us!
|
![]() |
We added a new blog snippet to the Transparency Hub.
|
![]() |
We added new content to the Transparency Hub.
|
![]() |
We added an answer to the question 'Why is one meal 700kcal, isn’t that too much?'
|
![]() |
Zach just submitted a new question.
|
![]() |
Golden Ticket contest announced via email.
|
![]() |
The Transparency Hub goes live.
|
Our complete transparency chain.
Click a step to only view articles about that step.Send it in!


Baking with Queal: Delicious Brownies

How long does it take for my order to arrive?
All our products are distributed from our warehouse in The Netherlands. All international orders first cross the nearby border to our neighbouring country Belgium and will be shipped to the right destination by a local carrier.
After “letting your package go” you will receive a tracking email. In this email (and on your dashboard) we will provide you with the tracking information.
Normally you should expect a tracking link the next workday. The European shipping times are listed below:
- 1 day – The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg
- 2-3 days – Germany, France, United Kingdom, Denmark, Monaco
- 3-4 days – Spain, Poland, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta
- 4+ days – Lithuania, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Finland, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canary Islands, Gibraltar, Serbia, Ukraine
- 7+ days - Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein
For Canada and the United States, it usually takes from 4 days up to two weeks for your package to arrive. Head over to the FAQ for specific shipping times for the rest of the world.

What are amino acids?
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins that play an important role in your body. Among supporting in other processed, they help to repair tissue and build muscle. Amino acids can be devided into essential and not-essential, but still important. The essential amino acids are the ones our body can not produce itself, thus the ones you have to get out of food.
The 9 essential amino acids are Histidine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan and Valine and of course, they’re all covered in our nutritionally complete meals. Using different sources of protein though, as we have vegetarian and vegan products. In STEADY Standard, Agile and Athletic whey protein is used. For our STEADY Vegan meals and READY, we use a mix of two plant-based protein sources: pea protein and rice protein.


Limited Edition Design Contest: the winners are here!
Currently, the winners of our Limited Edition Design Contest are tasting the samples of their flavours. Are you curious about what this process looks like? And what the next steps of developing Peach Party, Pure Passion and Glorious Ginger vs. Lovely Lemon are? Then check out this new blog!


3 moments to enjoy a STEADY meal.

Why don't you develop an RTD?
At Queal we want to make smart and accessible nutrition available to as many people as possible. A ready-to-drink (RTD) is a complete meal that is already pre-mixed and may be even easier to use than mixing a (powder) meal. But we believe there are three big downsides to RTD’s
The first is the cost of the meals. Because of the pre-mixing, pasteurizing and other processes, the meals (for now) can’t be competitive with powder-based Complete Foods.
The second is that by making an RTD, you are essentially shipping water around the world. This also adds to the costs and is not in line with the sustainability we want to achieve.
Thirdly we believe that (at the moment) RTDs don’t provide the nutritional mix that we believe is optimal for you.

What determines the costs of my order?
We’re aiming for a transparent and easy to understand pricing system. Therefore we’ve updated the pricing of Queal in November 2018, affecting shipping prices, bulk discounts, and the subscription discount.
For some countries (namely Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and the UK) we’ve incorporated the shipping costs. In most other countries, except the United States, the shipping cost of €4,- is valid. All orders below €49,- will still incur a shipping fee of €5,-.
In case you take out a subscription, you’ll receive a 15% off each renewal order. We understand that you might be a bit reluctant to take out a subscription because you don't want to be tied to anything. Therefore, you can still change, pause, or cancel your subscription anytime. The discount will be applied from the second month onward.
More info on our pricing system can be found in this blog.


Limited Edition Design Contest: the winners are here!
Peach Party, Pure Passion and Glorious Ginger vs. Lovely Lemon are the 3 winners of the Limited Edition Design Contest. We've contacted the winners already and told them about the exciting journey. Via this Transparency Hub, we will document all of the steps we will take. This blog post will already provide you with an overview.


Do I need to take three shakes a day?
Technically there are three meals in a bag because we, as humans, have evolved into eating around 3 main meals per day. Nevertheless, it’s up to you to decide if you want to eat one, two or three meals of Queal. You can follow the instructions for the amounts of scoops, or use more or less. This really depends on how hungry you are, or how you are used to eating. You can split up your meals into smaller amounts and end up eating four, five, or six meals a day.
Aside from to mixing Queal with water, there are a million other options. You can mix it with milk, mix two flavours together, make bread with Queal, make awesome smoothies, and much more.

What is the difference between vitamins and minerals?

How do all ingredients end up in the Queal pouch?
All processed ingredients are delivered separately at the production facility we work with. Up until they’re used in our meals, they’re stored in a climate controlled environment.
When the production of a certain flavour (and diet type) happens, all of the ingredients needed - plus a few additional helper ingredients - are mixed together. To make sure no big lumps end up in your pouch, the mix is carefully sieved when before our vegetable oils are added using a micro-coating technique. Then, last but not least, the eventual STEADY powder is checked by a metal detector. This is a usual practice in the world of food-safety, all to make sure no pieces of machinery fell into the powder.
When the pouches are provided with a flavour sticker, the packaging machine fills up every single one of them using a funnel.
You can find a more complete explanation of how our STEADY powder is made here.


How and why others use Queal.
Wondering what kind of people use our quick and complete meals, and how? For this blog post, we’ve gathered testimonials, messages and forum posts from people who all use Queal in a different way. From a simple and easy dinner on days you're working late to a complete and nutritious meal solution after dental surgery. And from only using our STEADY shakes to switching up different products or mixing different flavours.

How does the filling of the boxes work?
Queal distribution boxes are tailored to the size of our STEADY pouches. They are designed to ship our products efficiently and the different sizes (we’ve got three different types of boxes) take into account the most frequently ordered quantities of bags.
- When ordering a Taste Tester, Try-out deal, or a maximum of ten bags in total, you’ll receive the small box. It’s our ‘gift box’, teal coloured inside, a bit shiny on the outside. It’s the box most customers will see when they order for their first time.
- The medium-sized box has a capacity of up to roughly 20 bags. These boxes are sent out regularly to more longer-term customers who are already convinced about the product and order every few weeks.
- For our, among other complete food fanatics, New Years Revolution enthusiasts we also have a box which can be filled with roughly 40 (!) bags. Because of the heavy-weight, these boxes have an extra thick cardboard material.
Unfortunately, we see that even taking this into account, the boxes sometimes arrive damaged even with making use of sturdier cardboard. And, even though the sizes are tailored to logical order formats, our boxes often leave the warehouse with a lot of air(cushions). Keep an eye on the Improvements Timeline to stay up to date about future box improvements in terms of sizes and packaging.

Where do your oats come from?
Good question! As you might know, we try to source our all of our ingredients from within Europe. For our oats, this means the greatest part is grown and harvested in the United Kingdom and an additional part comes from Finland.
If you’re curious about the sourcing of all of our ingredients, make sure to check out the map on our Sustainability Page.

Why do I need vitamins?
Vitamins, as well as minerals, are so-called micro-nutrients. In relation to macro-nutrients, which are carbohydrates, proteins and fats, they are needed in smaller quantities. This doesn’t mean they are less important, though.
While the main task of macronutrients is to fuel your body with energy, vitamins (and minerals) are needed to maintain good health and to support all kinds of different functions in the body. Learn more.
From the proper development of skin tissue to the production of new blood cells, every different vitamin has an important function. Want to know more about which of the vitamins are essential, thus are part of our complete meals? We’ve wrote a blog post about it, which you can read here.


Maltodextrine versus Isomaltulose
Maltodextrin is created from cornstarch and Isomaltulose is derived from beets. Both ingredients are complex carbohydrates, equally present in our Queal recipe; 15g / 100g, but maltodextrin releases its energy faster than isomaltulose. Although isomaltulose needs to be classified as a sugar, the impact on your blood sugar will be much lower than with only maltodextrin. We specifically chose to combine both maltodextrin and isomaltulose to make sure the carbs in Queal are easily digestible and will provide you with a good dose of balanced energy.

Can I bake with Queal products?
Oh yes, baking with STEADY as well as READY works perfectly fine. To share these recipes with you, we have created “CookingNerds”. On this website, we’ve gathered all of the delicious tinkerings with regular Queal products and Limited Editions we’ve tried so far. To name something; Walnut Wonder Cookies, Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes, Mini Queal Carrot Cake, or Banana Bread.
On our forum, we often see customers with great recipes or customise tips too! So, if you yourself have some mouth-watering recipes to share, don’t hesitate to submit them here or via the website.

What are plant-based proteins?
Plant based proteins are protein sources retrieved from plants. Compared to animal-based proteins such as whey, plant-based proteins overall contain fewer amino acids and sometimes do not cover the whole range of needed amino acids. Therefore, in our vegan STEADY shakes and READY oatmeal we use a combination of pea and rice protein to cover your nutritional needs.


What minerals are essential?
In contrast to vitamins, not all minerals are essential for human health. According to the EFSA guidelines, there are 13 essential minerals. All 13 are present in our shakes and instant oat meal. They can be divided into “macrominerals” and “trace elements”. These “trace elements” are only needed in very small quantities. The following minerals are considered essential: potassium, chloride, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, chromium, molybdenum, and iodine.


How to enjoy a GO bar.

Who packs my box?
The employees of our distribution facility are hard at work for you every day. The facility is close to the Belgian border and therefore we can easily ship our packages worldwide.

What does your production location look like?
Clean & professional, as it should be of course. Every year, Riskplaza - an independent foundation focussed on safety in the food industry - carries out their “Audit+” to make sure our location is ok food-safety wise. Next to this, we also have a BRC- & FSSC 22000 certificate.
Practical-wise, our production location has a part where all of the ingredients are stored and a space where the powders are mixed and distributed in either pouches or cups.

Is guarana the same as caffeine?
Great question! Due to the word being used on energy-drink kinds of packagings a lot, lately, we understand the unclearness. Although Guarana is an excellent source of caffeine, it is not the same. Why? Well, because it contains other, very useful compounds too. The so-called xanthines and phenolics have a positive effect on learning as well as overal cognition, they appear to improve your secondary memory performance and reaction time.
These features plus, of course, the caffeine content is a reason for us to use Guarana in our Nootropic supplement Flow.

Why are the STEADY pouches not fully recyclable?
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.
Although one day of eating STEADY would equal just one pouch of “waste” - which is very little compared to the waste you’d create using regular groceries - we understand that it’s still a pity. Therefore, we’re currently busy developing a pouch that will ensure our powder’s quality for at least one year as well as being fully recyclable. On our Improvements Timeline, we’ll keep you up-to-date about this project.


Oats are the base of our products.
There are several reasons why we use oats as the main ingredient of our products. First of all: Oats are one of the world’s healthiest grains. Oats, next to their high content of so called "beta-glucans" (dietary fibers), contain a lot of useful vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. The fibers in oats are more soluble than those present in other grain types, meaning they are satiating and will keep you fuller for a longer time. Another main reason for using whole grain oat flour as base for our shakes and instant oats, is because we found it to be the best fitting form of grains/carbs, one of the building blocks of a healthy meal. Although oats do in fact contain protein (between 11% to 17% by dry weight to be exact, and is actually one of the most protein-rich grains) and unsaturated fatty acids, the main part (66%) are carbohydrates.

Is the packaging of GO recyclable?
Not at the moment, unfortunately. The reason for this is the two types of materials that ensure long shelf life, just as with our STEADY pouches. At the moment, we found that there’s no other suitable alternative, but of course, we’ll keep our eyes open!

Why is one meal 700kcal, isn’t that too much?
The theory behind our 700kcal meals is that the average caloric intake in a day should be around 2100 kcal, living a normal (not too active) lifestyle. In that case, one pouch could be all of the nutrition you need a day. If you would, for example, consume three meals of STEADY standard, you will end up with this 2100 kcal and also 100% of your recommended daily intake of vitamins, minerals, fats, protein, carbs and fibre.
All these ingredients are aligned with the guidelines of the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority). In case you find that a 700kcal is too big for your breakfast or lunch, feel free to customise however you’d like. The meals are easily adjustable.


From farm to “table”.
Queal is made by mixing together the oat flour, whey protein, isomaltulose, maltodextrin, soy flour, sunflower oil, linseed oil, and the vitamin & mineral mix. Next to these building blocks we add a few helper ingredients. These consist of natural flavouring, glucose syrup, emulsifier (sunflower lecithin), raising agent (sodium bicarbonate), thickener (xanthan gum & modified starch), anti-caking agent (silicon dioxide), antioxidant (rosemary extract), and sweetener (sucralose). Queal is mixed in The Netherlands. The separate ingredients are mostly sourced and processed in Europe. You can find more information about our ingredients at the Sustainability Page.


How to prepare your FLOW nootropic.

Why are there 3 meals in a STEADY pouch?
Because, technically, we as humans have evolved into eating around 3 main meals per day. For one full day of eating - which would be 2100 calories using our STEADY Standard powder - you could make yourself one a nice and filling shake for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Of course, though, feel free to customise! Like to have more, smaller meals out of one bag? Just use fewer scoops and water? Hungry? Then have more scoops and more water instead. It’s completely up to you.

What if I want smaller/bigger meals?
Our bags are designed for three 700kcal meals in a day to measure against the standards for calorie intake. We have experienced that only around 10% of our customers lives 100% of STEADY shakes. If you’re not planning to do this as well, you can just pour more (or less) scoops in your shaker and create the perfect meal for your needs.
In case you decide to do this, don’t forget to adjust the amount of added water as well! Our Customise page shows you how many scoops you need for the number of calories you prefer, there are cool recipes on there too!

Does FLOW work the same as energy drink?
In a way, we can imagine you’d say FLOW is a bit similar to energy drinks. Let us explain shortly what kind of additional, useful features it has. First of all, FLOW isn’t a sugary soda drink, while most energy drinks are. It doesn’t come in liquid form but as a supplement which you can add to your favourite beverage. Then, FLOW is a mix of four nootropic and neuroprotective compounds, namely: Guarana - a fruit from South American trees in powdered form, L-Theanine - an amino acid mostly found in green tea, CDP-Choline - a naturally occurring compound that the body breaks down into useful bio-neurological building blocks and Ashwagandha.
While the natural caffeine in Guarana has stimulating properties, the L-theanine makes sure this boost is calm and focussed. The other ingredients are neuroprotective and will improve brain functions over the longer term, FLOW is much more than an energy drink!

Do you plan on making single serve packages?
No, not at the moment. The reason for this is both price-wise, as we’d have to produce and send more pouches - and sustainability-wise. We believe that the handiness of single serve pouches would not outweigh the fact we’d use a lot more packaging. Also, when stored in a dark and dry place, the shelf life of our products is long enough to enjoy flavours - thus have multiple opened pouches - at the same time.


About STEADY 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. ecause we strive for as little environmental impact as possible, a new packaging material will be used for producing our pouches starting next year (2019). By then, our pouches will be entirely made of one material: PET 1 and suitable for 100% recycling. You can find more information about our packaging at the Sustainability Page.

Where are all of your ingredients mixed?
All of the ingredients we use are being collected and stored in our production location. Here, they’re mixed together using one of the Queal recipes. Our production location is situated in the Netherlands, just like our office.

Which plant-based proteins are in Queal vegan?
When we decided that we wanted to start offer a vegan variation of our STEADY shakes too, we of course wanted to make these meals evenly complete. Therefore, the ingredients that needed an alrernative were our vitamins D3 and the whey protein. For the vitamins, we decided to develop a new, completely plant based versoin of our vitamin- and mineral mix using D2 instead of D3. For the alternative protein source, this search was a little more complicated as - in general - plant-based proteins do not cover the whole range of all essential amino acids.
Eventually, we found that an equal mix of pea protein and rice protein - which we now use in STEADY vegan and READY - not only did cover all 9 essential amino acids, but also worked well in terms of mixability and creaminess.


Queal as an environmental friendly choice.
By choosing Queal, you’ll make a great leap in living more environmentally conscious, without necessarily noticing it. We make use of sustainable ingredients, Queal is a 100% nutrition and 0% food waste because of year-long expiration date, consuming our products reduces water use significantly and we make use of efficient packaging with three meals in one bag. Besides, all our regular products are vegetarian, and we recently launched our Vegan line of shakes for those fully committed to eating animal-free.

What does the process of product development look like?
In very short: we come up with the idea and work together with our food scientist to ensure the nutritional completeness. When various recipes of the idea are ready, we taste them and beta-test them, tweak them according to our and your feedback and make sure a final recipe gets formulated.
In the meantime, of course, we figure out what kind of packaging we’d need, how we’d like it to look, possibly reach out to an external packaging-designer and make sure the needed amount of bags, cups and/or boxes are present at our production location when we need them to be.
If you'd like to learn a little more about our process of product development, we've just recently published a blog post about our "Road to READY".

Why do other people use Queal?
For lots of different reasons actually. Just to name a few: most of our customers like our products because they’re efficient and time-saving. Besides, it’s an easy way to track caloric intake and it gives you a certainty that you get in enough vitamins and minerals, proteins, fibre and good fats.
As Queal, we don’t tell you to live off it 100% but technically this is certainly possible! If you’re looking for some examples and use-cases of people using either Queal or complete meals in general, our forum and the Soylent Subreddit are here for you.
Also, we’ve gathered some testimonials from our customers here. Go ahead and have a look!

How many people work for the production of Queal?
It changes based on demand, but there are roughly 16 people working at our production location. It’s them who make sure all of our ingredients are mixed together, who coordinate the filling of the pouches and who arrange the transfer of ready Queal products to our warehouse.


What about bulk and single serve?
The majority of our customers voted on the dashboard for preferring bulk packaging over three-meal pouches. And although it seemed that many would prefer single serve pouches over three-meal pouches too, nothing turned out to be less true. The main reason for choosing bulk over others is the assumption that bulk packaging and meals would be cheaper. The second motivation was the environmental aspect of the packaging. Unfortunately, bulk packaging isn’t more affordable. Therefore we decided to stick to the three meal pouches.

Can you really live off of shakes?
Yes, you can! Our shakes are made in a way that it’s possible to replace any meal. If you want to replace all meals with STEADY shakes, that’s totally up to you. 3 shakes a day will provide you with 100% of the daily recommended intake of vitamins, minerals, fats, carbs, proteins, and fibre. Changing to a complete food diet in one go isn’t something we would recommend.
In most cases, our shakes will contain other macronutrients than your body is used to. This means, in case of switching from a completely different way of eating, that your body will need a couple of days to get used to this. If you want to receive advice from our customers or other complete food enthusiasts, we’d recommend heading over to our forum or the complete food subreddit.

Is the packaging of READY recyclable?
Unfortunately, no. The READY cups are made from cardboard with PE food coating. Once you’ve prepared READY in the cup it cannot be thrown away with normal paper waste.
For READY, we found portability and ease the most important factors and therefore chose to offer it in single serve cups. And as it has to be prepared with boiling water, a cup that’s made of only plastic or cardboard isn't that safe.


What’s the best way to use FLOW?
Flow can be the perfect start of the day or a perfect afternoon boost at work. You can add a scoop to any drink (including Queal). Flow has a slight raspberry flavour. Forget about coffee, Flow is a nutritional supplement (nootropic) that combines four ingredients: Guarana, L-Theanine, Cdp-Choline, and Ashwagandha. These carefully chosen ingredients will productively help you create meaningful work.


How to prepare a STEADY meal.

Is Queal expensive?
No, although at first glance, it may appear so. But let us explain a bit and we’re sure you’ll change your mind. Let’s take our flagship product STEADY Standard as an example. One pouch costs 7 euros, according to the size of your order you will have to pay a little extra for shipment but most of the times, that 7 euros will provide you with 3 whole, nutritious meals. It’s a day worth of food, very healthy food.
Now try and think of what one day food will cost you at the supermarket. Even if you’d choose the cheapest ingredients and buy them in stock, it’s hard to source all of the ingredients for balanced and healthy nutrition at a price of less than 7 euros. Then, your pouches of STEADY will last for at least a year, while regular food often is perishable. Last but not least, regular food - especially if you want to make sure to get every nutrient - requires preparation. Preparation is time, time is money. Now do the math again ;)

Why aren't all of the Queal products completely vegan?
Although we do offer vegan products, which are STEADY vegan and our READY instant oat meal, we’re not a 100% vegan company. The main reason for this is our want to serve a broad range of different people who all could benefit from quick and complete meals.
In the non-vegan - but vegetarian - variations of STEADY, we use whey as protein source because of its complete amino acid profile, the creaminess and the fact it mixes well. Then, whey protein is only a by-product of the cheese-making process. Therefore, it already is a big step forward compared to other, direct sources of animal protein like dairy and milk if we’d we look at sustainability.


Limited Edition step by step.
If you’re a Quealer yourself, you probably know that we have at least one Limited Edition flavour of our STEADY standard available at any moment. We started doing this in 2016, so a whole lot of different, delicious and surprising flavours have passed by already. Every time again, we love to come up with a new idea - or take note of your delicious suggestions! - and make sure it gets created real time. From the tweaking in our lab to tasting as pro’s, coming up with a name and making sure the pouches are ready to be sent: you can now read a step by step explanation of the Limited Edition process here.


What vitamins are essential?
There are 14 essential vitamins in our products. We follow the EFSA guidelines to determine the quantity needed for every single type. These are the vitamins in our vitamin- and mineral mix: vitamin A, vitamin B5, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, biotin, and choline.

What is the difference between READY and STEADY?
The greatest differences between these two are found in the way you prepare the meal, how you consume it and how big the portion sizes are. While STEADY is a drinkable meal, containing around 700 calories, READY is a “chewable” meal you consume with a spoon and that contains 400 calories per portion.
After introducing two types of cold meals (liquid shakes and solid bars), we came up with a meal that is meant to be prepared hot. READY is be made by using boiling water from the cattle or by putting it in a microwave after adding cold water. STEADY just needs 350ml of cold water and 30-seconds-shake.

What happens after I place my order?
After you place your order, it will be automatically printed on a packing slip in our warehouse. Whenever it’s time for your box to be packed, one of the employees there picks your order product by product and makes sure your box is filled correctly.
Then they print out a sticker with your address information, closes the box and makes sure it’s prepared for the right carrier who comes to pick it up at night. Depending on your country, the box either stays at that carrier or is brought to another one.


How to prepare READY.


The road to READY.
READY is part of the Queal family since December 2018, but behind the scenes, we were working on this new innovative product for a little while already. It all started with the idea of offering the world something already familiar but still nutritionally complete. A product that would be the perfect introduction to complete foods for those who don’t fancy drinking shakes as well as a hot and chewable alternative for our pioneers. Along the way, we’ve tested samples of our ideas ourselves, sent them out to our most loyal customers, tweaked the recipe, looked for the best packaging, started a pre-order campaign and launched it with a tram ride through the city of Rotterdam. If you’re interested in reading about this process step by step, thus finding out our road to READY, then make sure to read the article!

What does the process of product development look like?
In very short: we come up with the idea and work together with our food scientist to ensure the nutritional completeness. When various recipes of the idea are ready, we taste them and beta-test them, tweak them according to our and your feedback and make sure a final recipe gets formulated.
In the meantime, of course, we figure out what kind of packaging we’d need, how we’d like it to look, possibly reach out to an external packaging-designer and make sure the needed amount of bags, cups and/or boxes are present at our production location when we need them to be.
If you'd like to learn a little more about our process of product development, we've just recently published a blog post about our "Road to READY".

Do I need cold water for STEADY?
You don’t necessarily have to prepare our STEADY shakes with cold water. Unless you prefer a really cold shake, water straight from the tap at room temperature will work perfectly fine too. Some of our customers put their shakes in the fridge overnight or, for example, an hour or so before consuming. Putting them in the fridge will make your shake a little thicker though, so keep this in mind or add some extra water beforehand!


What are plant-based proteins?
Proteins are important in our nutrition. They provide 4kcal per gram, and thus energy, and it’s useful for building muscles and repairing tissues. For the latter, amino acids - present in protein - are needed. Some of these amino acids can be produced by the body itself but others do we have to retrieve from our food. These are so-called essential amino acids. Proteins from plants contain fewer amino acids and (sometimes) do not cover the whole range of these essential amino acids. Finding the perfect balance of amino acids resulted in an equal mix of pea and rice protein.


Our opinion on soy
From time to time we get a question from someone who is worried about the quantity of soy flour in Queal. Mostly, this is regarding a perpetuating myth that soy is supposed to reduce the body’s production of testosterone, or in some other way messing with the hormone levels of people.
It’s good to note that that myth is in reference to soy-protein, not soy flour. And aside from that: There is no scientific consensus on this effect at all. We choose to include soy flour in our shakes because it’s a good source of macronutrients, carbohydrates and fats to be exact. Also, soy comes with a good range of micronutrients like folate, vitamin K, calcium, magnesium and iron.

Is Queal an environmentally friendly choice?
Yes, especially when you’d compare it to a “regular” meat-based diet. Queal meals all are vegetarian and some are even vegan too. As the production of meat and animal agriculture, in general, requires huge amounts of land, water and energy, switching to Queal meals will make a huge difference. Besides, we pack our meals in a very efficient way. Not quite often you’ll find three meals in one pouch, right?
According to the ingredients in Queal products; most of the ingredients we use are sourced from within Europe. Since they’re dry products, we don’t face problems regarding best before dates and therefore we don’t throw away much within the production chain. This also counts for you. Once Queal has reached your home it’s still safe to eat at least a year - so with this, you save on food-waste too, which is positive for the environment!

Can I eat READY five meals a day?
In theory, yes, it’s certainly possible to have READY five times a day! We engineered READY in a way that one portion of these instant complete oat meal is based on 20% of your RDI. So, having five of it a day will provide you with 100% of your recommended intake.
If you’d prefer alternation, though, you can variate READY with our STEADY shakes (⅓ of your RDI) or GO bars (also ⅕ of your RDI). Of course, it’s perfectly fine to enjoy any other “regular” meals since it’s easy to keep track of your caloric intake.

What’s Queal’s opinion on soy?
Soy - especially soy protein - suffers from a bad image now and then, mostly caused by the myth that it would mess with human reproductive hormone levels. Here at Queal, we’ve done our research and we’re confident that soy flour is a proper source to use in our meals, especially when sourced from within the EU. Want to learn more, or know which products contain soy, read the Ingredients post here.

Why is there no maltodextrin and isomaltulose in READY?
Maltodextrin and Isomaltulose in STEADY are used because of a great variety of reasons, but in very short: they are used to provide these meals with a balanced quantity of slow and fast carbs and help better the texture so that your shakes have a pleasant mouthfeel.
As READY contains more oats in general, because it is an instant oatmeal after all, maltodextrin and isomaltulose where not needed as sources of carbohydrates. Also, because we wanted Ready to be a meal that you can chew, we didn't need to add it to the recipe to pursue that drinkable texture.


Why aren't all of the Queal products vegan?
Protein can come from both animal-based and plant-based sources, and if you’d take a closer look at the environmental and ethical impacts of both, you would say the latter is “better”.
The main reason we still use whey protein, besides our completely vegan products, is because whey’s a so-called “complete protein”.
It contains essential amino acids that cannot be made by the body itself.
Most plant-based sources of protein only consist out of a few essential amino acids, so a combination of multiple proteins has to be made.

Why do you use oats as the base for Queal products?
Oats are a great source of nutrition. They’re one of the world’s healthiest grains and they contain a lot of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and dietary fibre. Compared to other whole grains, oats are more soluble and thus will make sure our meals are satiating.
Another very important reason to pick oats as a product base is the fact that it’s a so-called miscellaneous crop. This means that oats can grow on almost any kind of soil and doesn’t need any special kind of treatment. Which is an awesome feature, sustainability-wise.

What is the best way to use FLOW?
If you mix one scoop of FLOW powder with your morning Queal (or preferred beverage) you can experience an increase in focus and also a drastic reduction in terms of reaction time. There isn’t really the best way to use the product, as every person’s day is different. However, FLOW is a nootropic supplement meant to increase your focus thus it will be most useful to consume in the morning, in your lunch break or in the afternoon. Unless you work(-out) at night of course ;)
It’s up to you to decide when FLOW comes in handy. Every scoop contains 87,5mg of caffeine. This is comparable to approximately two cups of coffee.


Why doesn't Queal sell keto shakes?
Back in 2016, we decided (after giving it a lot of thought) to not going to make a keto shake because of these two reasons: first of all, we found the market wasn’t big enough to invest in a product like the Keto shake. While we want to help as many of you with a healthy diet, a product would have to be profitable for us to keep up the production, of course.
The second reason is the fact Queal’s products focus on a balanced and complete meal. While a Keto shake has proven to be quite a good way to lose weight, it is not a complete meal due to the lack of carbs. This is, in our opinion, too far away from the values of our company.


How many channels do you have in distributing your products?
We only make use of online sales channels. You can buy Queal via our website www.queal.com but also via one of our distribution partners in the Baltics or Sweden. More information about our official resellers can be found on this page. All orders we receive via our own webshop are sent out from the same distribution facility we have in The Netherlands. Is possible to order and get your Queal delivered all over the world.
The reason we're not selling in offline stores is that it's still too early for complete foods. With (even) wider adoption it will become more economical for both the supermarket and us.

What is Queal packaged in?
Nowadays, packaging is a hot topic. To be precise, no one can’t stop talking about it. More than ever the sustainability and recyclability of packaging are found important and we ourselves at Queal are totally aware of this. As mentioned in the improvements blogs and timeline, we’re currently working on improving the STEADY pouches. But what exactly are these pouches, and all other packagings we use, made of?
Click through to the blog to learn about the packaging of READY, STEADY, GO, and FLOW.