Licious launches Sizzl to win 28-year-old snackers

Licious has spun its ready-to-eat snacks and meals into a separate sub-brand called Sizzl, unveiled at a creator-led event in Mumbai with more than 300 celebrities and creators, including Varun Dhawan, Uorfi Javed, Ibrahim Ali Khan and Rebel Kid. The products—momos, kebabs, tikkas, snacks and protein meals—have been on sale for several years; the change is that they now carry their own identity and marketing mandate.

‘We realised that this entire range, this whole category, deserved its own identity,’ Varun Khanna, SVP-Marketing at Licious, told Afaqs!

01 · The logic: a younger sibling for a forty-something parent

Licious has built its fresh meat, seafood and egg business with a core consumer of about 40. Sizzl is aimed at a primary age of 28, with the wider goal of reaching buyers as young as 25. Khanna describes the sub-brand as a ‘slightly naughty, cheeky younger sibling’ to the parent—a different personality for a different occasion.

The portfolio play lets Licious move beyond raw meat for home cooking and into snacking, parties, quick meals and fitness. Sizzl brings more than 80 products under one umbrella, and Khanna sees it as a route into India’s broader $50-billion meat and seafood market, with momos alone representing a largely unorganised Rs 30,000-crore market.

02 · Where the brand is spending its energy

Sizzl’s marketing is almost entirely social and experiential. Licious has raised social and content investment to 15–20% of marketing spend over the last 18 months, and Sizzl is applying that playbook through creator partnerships with Rebel Kid and Gaurav Kapoor, run clubs for fitness-focused protein buyers, and PVR integrations around movie snacking.

The product story leans on freshness and protein. Everything except the momo portfolio is fresh and chilled, not frozen, resulting in a shorter shelf life. The 200-gram chicken breast portion in the daily protein range delivers about 30 grams of protein, and Licious says the momos skip fillers while kebabs and tikkas avoid additives. That positions Sizzl as a premium convenience brand, not a price fighter.

03 · A premium price in a crowded freezer

Pricing makes the positioning clear. Among chicken momo packs, Sizzl sits at the top of the range.

• Wow! Momo: Rs 195–250 for 10–12 pieces
• Prasuma: Rs 185–270 for 10–24 pieces
• Godrej Yummiez: Rs 130–160 for 10–12 pieces
• Sizzl: Rs 379 for 16 pieces

04 · Selective distribution by design

Licious is not racing to add new channels. Sizzl sells through the Licious app, quick-commerce platforms and select retail stores, with the company’s own app accounting for much more than half of revenue and quick commerce carrying around 10–20% of the product selection. Khanna said there are no current plans for dedicated Sizzl cafés or offline outlets.

Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru are the priority markets. Khanna noted that some areas of Delhi and parts of Bengaluru have already scaled to Rs 150 crore in annual business, and that staples such as kebabs, tikkas and momos travel more easily across regional tastes than fresh fish. The brand will hold its metro focus rather than push quickly into tier-two cities.

05 · What marketers can take away

Sizzl is a clean example of an endorsed sub-brand: it borrows quality and cold-chain trust from Licious while taking on a younger tone the parent could not easily absorb. For brand leaders, the lesson is to give new occasions their own voice, product story and pricing power—but keep distribution disciplined until repeat purchase proves the demand.

Source: Afaqs!

Mad About Marketing Desk The strategists and writers at Mad About Marketing, writing up what we see in the work every week.