Listed ready meal specialist Parsley Box unboxes plans to raise £7m

Edinburgh-based meal delivery firm Parsley Box Group has announced plans to raise £7 million, with aims including securing more revenues from “high-quality” customers, and bolstering its balance sheet.

The firm, which floated on London’s junior Alternative Investment Market a year ago, delivers ready meals that do not need to be stored in a fridge or freezer, and is focused on the growing “Baby Boomer+” demographic aged 60 and above.

Chaired by Scottish gaming mogul Chris van der Kuyl, it has unveiled a proposed equity fundraising of approximately £5.9m by way of a placing and subscription at a price per share of 20 pence.

The company in addition said it will be making an open offer to qualifying shareholders at the issue price – which represents a premium of about 11.1 per cent to the closing share price on March 9 – to raise up to £1.1m. Parsley Box’s directors and associates intend to participate, in aggregate, £4.2m of the fundraising.

The announcement comes after the business in September said it had been hit by labour issues throughout its supply chain, severely knocking its growth plans.

In the latest announcement it said it has experienced a “challenging” first year as a listed company, “but has taken important learnings from this”.

In terms of why the firm is now pursuing such fundraising, it said the proceeds will be used for targeted new customer acquisition, and developing both an online customer journey “tailored to our demographic” and a membership program to start a customer community.

The firm is led by chief executive Kevin Dorren, who has said he wants Parsley Box to be a household name. Picture: John Need.

It also gave details of how it has further product-line expansion, selective acquisitions, and brand leveraging in its sights as well as new food items introduced every quarter, for example. Last year it launched a “premium” chilled range as it grew its product offering.

The business added that open offer funds will be used to strengthen the balance sheet and general working capital, “to support a four-year-old scale up business”, with the growth strategy designed to increase revenues from high-quality customers, helping achieve earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (ebitda) profitability.

Returning customers

Parsley Box says repeat customer revenue accounted for 80 per cent of 2021 sales at £20.7m, a year-on-year jump of 18 per cent, while average order value grew 8 per cent despite the supply-chain issues experienced in the second half of last year.

The business highlighted unaudited figures showing that revenue grew to £25.5m in 2021, up from £24.4m in 2020, but it also widened its adjusted ebitda to £7.1m from £2.2m.

Parsley Box was founded in 2017 by husband and wife Gordon and Adrienne MacAulay, following their discovery of limited ready meal delivery options for his mother. In 2019 it saw Mr Van der Kuyl join the board and invest in the firm, which is now based in Edinburgh’s Quartermile.

It is led by chief executive Kevin Dorren, who previously founded Move Fresh, an investment company for e-commerce fast-moving consumer goods brands and the holding company of healthy meal delivery firm Diet Chef. He has said he wants Parsley Box to be a household name, in March last year stating: “Our journey has only just begun.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.