The first rice cooker was introduced in 1945 by Mitsubishi in Japan. Unlike today's rice cookers, chefs had to monitor the rice cooker until the rice was done cooking. By 1955, Toshiba introduced its own, fully automatic version of the rice cooker By the late 1950s, most households in Japan owned a rice cooker.
In 1960, rice cookers could not only cook rice but also warm rice until serving. By the late-1970s, rice cookers were made with technology and came with different cooking settings. Rice cookers quickly took off because rice was cheap to buy but not always easy to cook, and rice cookers gave chefs a consistent cook each time.