Col Sanders said it best, ‘finger lickin’ good!’ Sanders is the purveyor of that global chicken chain KFC, and used to appear in ads abroad biting into a piece of meat.
Big gun corporates in India will be in agreement, their interest in the meat and seafood market replicating. On Friday, atta-to-agarbatti conglomerate ITC took a bite of the company behind brands Prasuma and Meatigo. Both brands had made a name in urban markets across the country with their range of frozen foods, heat-and-serve non-veg items, deli meats, cold cuts and exotic snacks.
ITC joins fellow conglomerate Godrej, which already has a pan-Indian presence in the frozen meats and snacks market with its brands Yummiez and ‘Real Good Chicken.’
“(ITC) Look forward to jointly building an unparalleled, full stack frozen, chilled and ready-to-cook foods portfolio. With Good-for-You, first-to-market products, across cuisines, we believe that the combined portfolio will delight our discerning consumers,” said ITC whole-time director Hemant Malik
“This investment reaffirms our commitment to building future-facing, best-in-class, innovative portfolios,” he added.
In tune with India’s rising consumption and the premiumisation trend, the frozen food & fish and seafood category had shot up dramatically in the months following Covid, encouraging the poster boys in the online meat-and-fish delivery format space – Licious and Fresh To Home.
However, estimates indicate that the spike has been tempered in recent months and years with customer's tendency to go back to the old physical format, haggling with fishmongers, checking out the produce first, selecting one’s preferred cut etc.
This has forced Licious, which even became the first unicorn (a company with a billion-dollar valuation) in the segment, as well as an early er…‘bird’ in the category, Fresh to Home, to adopt distinctly different business strategies to stay in shape.
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Fresh To Home has expanded internationally, aiming at NRIs in the Gulf, to improve its margins. Licious, meanwhile, has gone on to snap up physical fish and meat sellers in tune with the trend. It recently acquired ‘My Chicken and More’, a physical store chain selling fish and meat which has 23 stores across the greater Bengaluru area. Coupled with Licious’s own 6 stores, this takes the number of outlets to 29, which, according to Licious, will go up beyond 500 pan-India in the coming years.
Reports indicate Licious might look at an IPO pretty soon, while its rivals are also looking at modes like direct delivery to businesses like caterers, hotels etc, as well as targeting the lucrative seafood export sector. India exported 60,000 crore rupees worth of seafood in 2024.
Profit margins continue to be a problem for these startups considering the Indian customer’s obsession with value-for-money and affordability could just give the right reason for corporates to enter the space, as their deeper pockets and distribution might help the business sustain in the long run. It is no wonder they are consolidating – while ITC has snapped up Prasuma and Meatigo, Godrej recently brought out the stake of its international partner Tyson.
