Henri Peteri worked for an instant soup manufacturer in the 1970s. He felt that instant soup would never be instant if you did not have a tap with instant boiling water. So he quit his job and devoted the rest of his life to developing the instant boiling water tap.
Fifty years later, the ‘Chinese tomato soup with or without chicken’ in the Quooker canteen is also on a powder basis. The sandwiches and salads are fresh. Catering coordinator Patricia Hiel (51) has red nails, red lips, red hair and a red apron. “Quooker red,” she says. She has been running the canteen for over seven years. About six hundred sandwiches are processed every day. This week there are healthy sandwiches, chicken fillet with honey mustard sauce, ham salad, chicken curry-pineapple, witch’s cheese, grilled vegetables and caprese. All sandwiches cost one euro. A large bowl of fresh lettuce from the buffet costs one euro and fifty cents.
The absolute favorite is the homemade Surinamese chicken sandwich. “I cut 32 kilos of chicken last week, and I still came up short,” says Patricia. The company has grown in recent years and the staff no longer fits in the canteen. “I have 113 seats here for seven hundred people.” Most employees come from Ridderkerk and the surrounding area. “Angelique is Ridderkerker, Ouafae is Ridderkerker, I am Ridderkerker,” says Patricia. “That creates a bond, we understand each other here.”
Patricia has to order cake for Hanneke’s 25th anniversary: cake with a photo of Hanneke on it for seven hundred people. “I order a cake like this almost every week, people work here for a long time.”
It is noon, a school bell sounds through the building. Employees in red T-shirts flow from the factory into the canteen. The ‘floor employees’ have lunch in shifts and are therefore given priority at the buffet. People without a red T-shirt, people who work in the office, let them in front of the cash register. The long tables in the canteen are the first to be full. Office and floor workers mixed. The smaller tables are pushed together, which is more pleasant.
Catering coordinator Patricia Hiel (m) wears her nails, hair, earrings and apron in “Quooker red”.
Photo Simon Lenskens, Simon Lenskens
‘Just be nice’
Roy Doekhi (55) works on the indoor boilers and started today at six in the morning. For lunch he has a bowl of salad, tomato soup and a carton of buttermilk: two euros and thirty cents. This is his third break. “If you start at six o’clock you have a break here at eight, ten and twelve.” Quooker takes good care of its people, he says. Every break he goes to the canteen with his team. “Have a chat, have a cup of coffee.” Dewi Fajar (55) eats soup, Khwanrat Thammawong (42) a bowl of salad. “You can really eat a lot here for one euro,” says Khwanrat. They work in the flex crane department and moved three tables together with their team. The most important thing at Quooker? “That you can get along well, just be nice.”
Jan de Jong (58) and Wim Mercey (57) are cousins. “He’s five months older, can you tell?” Wim says. They have been with the company for over twenty years. Jan in production, Wim in logistics. Jan always takes a can of chocolate milk and a carton of milk. Jan’s sandwich is so thickly filled that the yellow chicken curry oozes out on all sides. Wim has “a soup and a sandwich”. There is a chip shop twice a week, when they usually have “a snack”. They also come from Ridderkerk. Every five years the entire company goes abroad together. Wim and Jan have already been to Germany, Iceland and Denmark. They will go again in September. They don’t know yet what the next destination is, but they will be there anyway. Wim: “It’s just fun here, I’ll stay until the end.”