In October 2021, just 6 years since inception, Licious became a unicorn. The latest round of funding - series G - saw the Bangalore-based startup raise a whopping $52 million, taking its valuation to $1.05 billion. Licious, an online app that sells meat and seafood, is a proprietary cold chain network. From sourcing to delivery, they've taken over the meat industry, and cater to over a million customers. The meat is sourced from biosecure farms and fisheries and goes through 150 quality checks. Licious is India's first meat brand that has secured the FSSC 22000 certification. The brand operates in 16 major Indian cities. They've managed to revolutionise the meat and seafood industry by recognizing the power of AI and using it wisely for the business.  

Keeping it Fresh 

Licious has its own AI technology that monitors the temperature of the products from sourcing till delivery. The brand is built on the promise that customers will receive fresh meat at their doorstep. To keep this promise, it's vital that the meat temperature is controlled, else there will be a chance of it getting stale. The use of this AI allows the meat to remain between 0-4°C. Another promise made by the brand is that the meat will be clean and cut correctly. The AI technology has helped train the meat technicians to master precise cuts. The meat is of the highest quality with regards to hygiene because of this technology.  

Navigating the Shelf Life Issue 

The company noticed that customers were buying small quantities for obvious reasons - short shelf life. Customers would also buy small quantities or abandon the cart completely if a particular product of their choice was not available. Ensuring enough inventory was essential. The data collection and analysis algorithm tracks customer behaviour and strategises accordingly. After making these observations, Licious decided to allow customers to place orders even if the product was not available at that moment. Customers now receive a message that the products in stock will be delivered in 90 minutes and the rest will be delivered to them after 4 hours or 24 hours. The message will specify the delivery time. Hence, instead of placing multiple orders as and when their preferred products are in stock, now customers have to place only 1 order and Licious will do the rest. “After all, it is almost impossible to make 100% of the product catalogue available all the time,” says Vivek Gupta, Co-founder of Licious. This decision helped the brand increase their revenue by 8% in a single day. The smart use of AI technology has helped reduce wastage, predict customer behaviour and ensure customer satisfaction through customised solutions.  

Tackling the 90-minute Delivery 

The unique selling proposition of Licious is that customers will receive their order within 90 minutes. It was evident that an algorithm or software to calculate real-time data accurately was required. They needed to know exactly where the product was in the supply chain at all times. For this, Licious turned to the Google Maps Platform. "We're a hyper local platform that promises our customers that we will deliver their fresh meat or seafood within 90 minutes, and operates a cold-chain logistics ecosystem. We turned to Google Maps Platform to help us build a better customer experience and make sure we can deliver on our promise." says Bhaskar Raju Konduru, Chief Technology Officer, Licious. The use of Google Maps added efficiency to tracking the pick-up, verifying the customer's address, mapping the best route, and transparent communication with the customers about the delivery time. On-time delivery is essential because of the perishable nature of the products offered by Licious. But delivery partners were having trouble locating the customers' addresses because of the chaotic urban planning in the cities. Without geographic coordinates, they would navigate the area for quite a while before finding the address. Licious smartly dealt with this problem by asking customers to enter their location using the Places feature in Google Maps before placing the order. The app then uses Place Search and Place Autocomplete to pinpoint the address. This address is then translated to geographic coordinates for the delivery partner using the Geocoding API. "Before, our customer support center used to receive many calls from customers asking where their orders were. Since starting to use Places API, we have reduced our missed deliveries by 30%, and our customer satisfaction has grown by 30%.", says Konduru. Every time Licios implements a new process or adopts a new AI technology, they get closer to ensuring freshness of the product and excellent customer satisfaction. 

Conclusion 

Moving ahead with new-age technology not only helps the brand but also the sector. The entire meat delivery industry is niche, with very few players and many customers still going to the local butchers and fishermen. However, with apps like Licious, the trend is changing and customers are highly satisfied with the hygiene and convenience factors. Licious enjoys a 90% reorder rate and has had a 50% drop in complaints. With new features and innovation in the books, the brand will go on to relish further success.