UK: Parsley Box floats on London’s AIM at a market cap of £83.8m

  • 26 March 2021
  • Ready-made
The direct-to-consumer provider of ready meals for baby boomers is set to enter the alternative investment market of the London Stock Exchange on 31 March 
From left: Parsley Box co-founder Adrienne MacAuley and chief executive Kevin Dorren

Parsley Box, the Edinburgh-based direct-to-consumer provider of ready meals to baby boomers, has raised £17 million from its initial public offering. The company is set to enter the alternative investment market of the London Stock Exchange at the end of the month, listed as trading company MEAL. 

The company alongside its existing shareholders offered 7.5 million ordinary shares at 200 pence each. Based on the IPO, Parsley Box enters the stock market valued at £83.8 million. 

Kevin Dorren, chief executive officer of Parsley Box, said the IPO is a significant milestone for the business, and argued it marks the starting gun on its next phase of growth.  

“The strong demand for our IPO from both blue-chip institutions and our own customers was a real endorsement of our business and the market opportunities that lie ahead of us,” said Dorren. 

On admission to the AIM market, the company will have 41,914,368 shares in issue and a free float of approximately 45.4%. 

Ready meals for baby boomers

Husband-and-wife team Gordon and Adrienne MacAuley founded Parsely Box in 2017. The company has grown rapidly since its inception, delivering 900,000 products each month to a loyal and growing client base of baby boomers – broadly defined as those aged 60 years and over.  

Parsley Box provides ambient ready meals, which are not required to be stored in a fridge or freezer, have a shelf life of up to six months and are cooked in minutes. 

True to its connection with its customers, Parsely Box partnered with PrimaryBid to give all eligible Parsley Box customers access to its IPO. It offered 7.5% of the shares in the offering and all customers that applied received 100% allocation. 

Mobeus Equity Partners and Chris van der Kuyl are existing shareholders in the company, having invested in the company two years ago, in a funding round totalling £4.6 million. 

The UK grocery market has seen a substantial shift to online with share growing from 8.8% in 2019 to 14.3% in 2020. This structural shift from shopping in physical store to online has been a gradual one across many years, but accelerated by the stay-at-home restriction associated to the Covid-19 pandemic.  

The baby boomer segment of the population represents part of the behavioural shift towards buying food online for home delivery.

Parsley Box has seen revenues grow at 248% to £24.4 million for the two years to the financial year 2020.