By Scott Wright

The rapid growth experienced by Parsley Box, the Scottish ready-meal delivery business, during the pandemic has been likened by its chairman Chris van der Kuyl to being propelled by a “time warp”.

Edinburgh-based Parsley Box, which caters for the Baby Boomer generation, is capitalising on its meteoric rise by floating on the stock market, with an initial public offering valuing the business at nearly £85 million.

The move follows a period of “incredibly rapid” growth for the business, which saw orders soar as it became more difficult to visit supermarkets and book online delivery slots with the big grocers in the early days of lockdown last year. And yesterday it revealed an initial public offering of new and existing ordinary shares had raised around £17m, which includes £12m for the selling shareholders. Based on a placing price of 200p per ordinary share, the market capitalisation of the business will be £83.8m.

The placing was over-subscribed and attracted high-quality institutional investors, the company said.

Parsley Box was established in March 2017 by husband and wife Gordon and Adrienne MacAulay. It has been led since 2019 by chief executive Kevin Dorren, a food technology entrepreneur, with Ms MacAulay now head of product development.

The three, along with Mr van der Kuyl and his business partner, Paddy Burns, through their Chroma Ventures investment vehicle, are among shareholders who cashed in on the float. The three biggest shareholders were private equity firm Mobeus, the Dobbie family and Mr Dorren.

The directors of the company, together with their connected persons, will hold 32.1 per cent of the equity when shares are admitted to the Alternative Investment Market on March 31.

Parsley Box, which has around 500,000 registered users, delivers around 900,000 products to customers every month. This compares with an active consumer base of around 154,000 in January last year, underlining its relevance as lockdown conditions continue. Sales reached £24.4m last year.

Parsley Box offers a product range of 60 single portion meals, with its best sellers including cottage pie, lasagne and lamb hotpot, alongside wines, spirits, cakes and desserts. The products, which the firm says are priced competitively, can be stored at ambient temperature, with no need for refrigeration.

Mr van der Kuyl, a gaming entrepreneur who joined the board when he invested in the company in October 2019, believes Parsley Box is tapping into a “completely under-served” audience. “We just thought it was a great idea,” he said. “While everybody is looking at millennials, this fantastic demographic is being left alone. So we thought it [had] huge potential and it was growing really well at that point.

“Then we hit the pandemic, and suddenly our product was the perfect product for our customer base – if you were locked down, if you were struggling to get to the supermarket or indeed if the supermarkets were struggling to give you bookings for their deliveries. Volumes increased an incredible amount in that first week lockdown was announced. But the fabulous thing is the customers we brought in during lockdown are continuing to order the same way as the customers we had before lockdown. It was almost like a time warp for this business. If we had continued on [growing at the pre-pandemic rate] we would have got to the same place we are today, but it probably would have taken us two or three years.”

Mr Dorren, whose MoveFresh company owns Diet Chef, said: “The IPO is a significant milestone for the business and I see it as firing the starting gun on our next phase of growth. I am looking forward to leading the business through this exciting new chapter. 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. I’m pleased to welcome our new shareholders on board. I’d also like to thank our employees who do so much day in, day out to ensure we deliver great service to our customers.”