Ready meal couple cook up £80m float with Parsley Box

A couple are set for a massive payday when their food delivery business aimed at the over-60s floats with a valuation of £80m. 

Adrienne MacAulay, 52, and husband Gordon, 54, founded Parsley Box in Edinburgh in 2017. 

They own 12.2 per cent of the business, meaning their stake could be worth £9.8m at the float. 

Fine dining: Adrienne MacAulay, 52, and husband Gordon, 54, founded Parsley Box in Edinburgh in 2017

The couple were inspired after struggling to find cheap and easy meals for his mother after she moved into a sheltered home. 

They now deliver 900,000 meals per month, and have a menu of over 60 dishes, all in single portions, including cottage pie, lamb hotpot and lasagne, with an average price of between £3 and £4. They also sell desserts, cakes, wines and spirits. 

Parsley Box made £24.4m of sales in 2020 and the MacAulays hope investors will be swayed by the swift uptake of grocery delivery by the over-60s during the pandemic. 

Retired households’ spending on online grocery rose 229 per cent compared to before the pandemic, according to figures yesterday.