‘A myth’: Meal kits aren’t pricier than grocery trips, says Marley Spoon boss

“Cooking with meal kits is a behavioural change,” he said.

“I think our biggest value proposition is we give our customers their Sundays back. We remove the big argument on a Sunday afternoon: ‘Honey, what do you want to eat next week?’ But that takes time to really understand.”

The difficult trading environment has also precipitated some industry consolidation, including that of high-end restaurant meal delivery company Providoor, which collapsed on Friday. This comes a month after the plug was pulled on Fix, a joint venture between Peter Gilmore’s Fink Group and chef David Allison.

Investor enthusiasm in meal kit companies is also dwindling; Marley Spoon’s market cap is hovering around $65.5 million, less than half of the $200 million when it listed in 2018, while $7.4 billion rival HelloFresh’s share price has declined by more than 30 per cent in the past 12 months.

Marley Spoon aims to capture more customers by heavily discounting customers’ first five orders and promoting its more affordable brand, Dinnerly, which last week announced a price freeze until September to help customers with household budget planning.

The company would “most likely” extend Dinnerly’s price lock beyond the announced deadline, Weber said. “We’re reasonably certain we can hold up prices for quite some time, but we won’t promise it just yet.”

Why Marley Spoon is leaving the ASX

Weber, who is also global chief operating officer as well as CEO of the Australian business, is also co-ordinating an overhaul of the company structure. Marley Spoon announced last Thursday it was seeking to raise $52 million from new and existing shareholders. The majority (70 per cent) of the company’s shareholders have agreed to convert Marley Spoon shares into 468 Capital, a special purpose acquisition company related to one of its biggest shareholders.

Remaining shareholders will then be given an offer to convert their shares, and the company – with headquarters in Berlin – will seek to delist from the ASX and list instead on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Weber said the planned changes came about as a result of conversations between CEO Fabian Siegel and European shareholders and would resolve complexities of having a company based in Germany but listed in Australia.

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“Through these discussions, we learned there is actually a lot of interest [from] a European investor base that can’t invest into Marley Spoon, and this investor base actually understands the business model really well because they potentially have exposure to HelloFresh, which is also listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange,” he said.

The funds raised would go towards strengthening the balance sheet, he said.

“We are in interesting macroeconomic times, so we just want to have a bit of security in our balance sheet and making sure we have the right level to navigate the coming 12 to 18 months as we continue our journey to become ultimately cash-flow positive.”