Licious enters spices category with meat masalas

D2C unicorn Licious has been sharpening its focus on driving profitability and expects to become EBITDA positive by the end-2023. The meat and meat products brand has also decided to foray in the spices segment with the launch of a range of recipe-based meat masalas.

It has been making a series of launches this year including foray in the plant-based meat segment besides expanding its ready-to-cook portfolio.

Vivek Gupta, Co-Founder, Licious, told businessline, “ In the last nine months, we have cut down losses by nearly 50 percent and we believe we will exit this fiscal at a very marginal loss. In the next 12 months, we expect to be an EBITDA-profitable company. We have scaled up rapidly over the past 5-6 years. As our supply chain infrastructure stabilises, now we are focusing strongly on becoming profitable.”

Talking about the brand’s latest foray in the spices space, Gupta said, “ Indian consumers are fast evolving and the pandemic has accelerated that thinking. Consumers want to recreate restaurant-style dishes at home. Our foray is aimed at offering them specially curated meat masalas that can help them elevate their meat dishes at home. Our focus is not to offer generic spices but value-added spice mixes.”

The range, which includes classic chicken masala, Khansama Biryani masala and Dakshin Pepper Fry Masala, are packed in in single-use sachets. The company’s foray in spices comes at a time when the sector has been witnessing a lot of action with an accelerated consumer shift from unorganised to packaged spices.

“We believe our spices products are designed to solve a real consumer need. I think this category can become a ₹200-300 crore business in the next 3-4 years,” Gupta added.

Inflationary trends

Responding to a query on inflationary trends, he said, “ In the last one year, overall the prices have gone up whether it’s the chicken, fish or red meat segments. The pressure on margins has been much higher compared to last year. But we have largely absorbed these prices with only some bit of it being passed on to consumers.”

As part of its omni-channel strategy, the company is also looking to expand its offline presence. “ Currently, we have three stores. Our intent behind an offline presence is to be able offer the Licious experience to consumers and we are still experimenting at this stage. About 5-7 stores are in the pipeline and will open over the next few months,” Gupta added.