Ready meal firm Parsley Box reports steady growth fuelled by repeat orders after London IPO
Parsley Box reported active customers were at record levels after a surge in new customers earlier in the year, but things had begun to “normalise” post-lockdown.
The Edinburgh-based company, which targets the “baby boomer” generation, this morning reported unaudited first half revenue of £14m, an increase of 26 per cent over the same period last year and 411 per cent up on the first half of 2019.
In a trading update for the sixth months ending 30 June, Parsley Box said it ended the first half of the year with £6.5m in cash and no debt, following its £5m fundraising as part of its successful IPO in March – which valued the firm at £84m.
The firm, which targets the 60+ demographic who it said were “underserved” in the industry, reported active customers at the period end were at record levels, due to a spike in new customers earlier in the year coinciding with the UK’s winter lockdown. New customer sign-ups had cooled off since then, however, returning to a more “normalised” level for the rest of the period.
Parsley Box reported 256,089 repeat customer orders in the first half of the year – its key driver for long-term profitable growth. This was up 38.3 per cent on last year, and also tends to “flow into higher order values”, the firm said, as the average order value for repeat customers was £46.30.
The end of Covid restrictions, resulting in more “normalised” shopping behaviours had some impact on sales growth, the firm noted, but the company’s directors expect this effect to be short-term.
“The Board expects H2 revenue growth to be substantially ahead of H1, driven by product innovation and continuing progress in repeat AOV,” the trading update said.
Kevin Dorren, Chief Executive Officer, said: “The continued growth delivered in the first half of the financial year driven by strong growth in repeat orders has continued our positive momentum and is very encouraging.
“This, together with our key food development hires of Cassandra Suddes and Serena Philipson, gives us every confidence in the growth prospects for our business.
“We look forward to delivering the first phase of our product innovation pipeline in H2 2021.”