Licious pins next growth leg on faster delivery, ready-made meals

Meat and seafood retailer Licious is eyeing revenues of Rs 1,800 crore in fiscal year 2027, a 54% bump from FY26. To get there, the company is banking on a revised expansion strategy.

Instead of launching operations - delivery, dark stores, retail outlets - in a new city every few months, the company is looking to strengthen its network and sales in its existing markets. Currently, Licious sells products in at least 18 cities, including Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR and Mumbai, through its own platform and shops and third-party quick-commerce apps. It has an average order value of about Rs 670, gross margins of 32% and wastage of 3%. Earlier this year, it rolled out a 30-minute delivery service called Licious Flash, which already accounts for a sizable share of its online order volume (see figures in Arc Analysis).

Under the revised expansion plan, the company is analysing order data from its 50 lakh users to map demand at a neighbourhood level. That will help it identify areas where it can open more dark stores, i.e. micro-warehouses supporting fast deliveries, as well as retail outlets. In terms of new products, the company is preparing to introduce a ready-made meal line across sales channels.

It will include high-protein meals and momos. On the supply side, Licious is stepping up backward integration, sourcing more meat and seafood from its own farms compared with partner suppliers. It now sources 70-80% of its chicken from company-managed farms, while the share of shrimp and multiple fish varieties produced in-house is rising steadily. Licious, founded as a D2C meat brand by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta in 2015, has raised about $490 million to date.

The company was last valued at $1.47 billion, Tracxn data shows. In FY26, the company's net revenue increased by 47% to Rs 1,166 crore from Rs 795 crore a year earlier. EBITDA losses rose 11% to Rs 187 crore from Rs 168 crore. Licious competes with FreshToHome, TenderCuts and GoodToGo. Newer entrants in the space include Meatigo, Meatzza and Relish, Zepto's private-label meat brand, though the bigger opportunity still lies offline. In FY25, FreshToHome had gross revenues of Rs 421 crore (up 14%) and a net loss of Rs 146 crore. The EBITDA margin stood at negative 36.58%.