Quooker's story started in 1970. Rotterdam-born Henri Peteri worked for Unilever and was visiting the head office in London when he had an idea that would change his life for ever. It was during a presentation about instant soup. They showed how you could dissolve soup in boiling water in just five seconds. 'And to do that, you have to heat water for five minutes?' Peteri thought. 'That's stupid! Why can't we get boiling water from the mixer tap in our homes?!' When he got home, Peteri went down into his basement to develop a prototype of the first boiling-water tap in the world. It took a lot of time and money. But when the first model was made, Peteri sold it to friends and acquaintances who were very enthusiastic. Once people had used a Quooker, they couldn’t live without it.

When his son Niels finished his studies and joined his father, the idea became a product. In 1992, the first Quooker ('quick cooker') was introduced, the Quooker Basic. From the moment son Walter joined the company, Quooker gradually began to gain ground on the market. From 2000, things really started to take off. The boiling-water tap became a success in the Netherlands. In 2004, the first batch of Quookers was exported abroad.