Marley Spoon founder Fabian Siegel says his soon-to-be listed company has an "unfair advantage" over supermarket giants Coles and Woolies when it comes to home cooked meals.
Mr Siegel's company was born out of a hunger for new dinner recipes and, four years later, is now poised to capitalise on the growing number of Australians turning to online ways to make dinner preparation easier.
Marley Spoon, which plans to list on the ASX by July 2, has an online subscription model offering weekly delivery of boxes containing selected recipes and the fresh ingredients to make them.
The German-headquartered company operates in six countries and is seen as a potential disruptor in the $US2.6 trillion global consumer food services market.
Mr Siegel says the company's greatest advantage is its ability to slash waste by sourcing food to order - unlike the bulk orders, with their accompanying spoilage and waste, supermarkets use to fill their shelves.
That advantage allows Marley Spoon to clear a 22 per cent margin for each box it delivers.
"Someone has to pay for the waste that supermarkets have and that is the consumer," Mr Siegel told AAP after the release of Marley Spoon's prospectus on Wednesday.
"There is no reason why (Marley Spoon) couldn't become bigger and bigger because we have found a way that allows us to serve people and their cooking needs in a much better way than supermarkets."
The entrepreneur and chief executive of Marley Spoon said the company has the potential to have an effect on the food industry similar to the impact online shopping has had on the broader retail sector in recent years.
"I believe people will switch (from) offline to online for groceries," he said.
"The supermarket doesn't know what consumers want when they walk in the door and that leads to high waste. It doesn't work."
Mr Siegel said the ASX is the "ideal platform" for the company to build its brands, because Australia is the company's largest market and contributes 38 per cent of group revenue - slightly ahead of the US on 32 per cent and Europe with 30 per cent.
The meal kit provider, which competes against New York-listed Blue Apron and Frankfurt-listed HelloFresh, is seeking to raise about $70 million at $1.42 per security (the issue is in CHESS Depository Interests, or CDIs), giving it a market value of about $200 million.
Online penetration in the food market is only about two per cent, according to Macquarie analysts who have valued the company at up to $261 million, but a rising propensity to buy online and desire for greater convenience is expected to underpin market penetration.
Marley Spoon has grown rapidly since its inception, with its first-quarter update reporting active customers of about 110,000, up from 50,000 in early 2017.
It has forecast revenue of 93 million euros this year and expects its Australian segment to be earnings-positive in the second half of the 2018 financial year.
Share
