Down to the bone: Young consumers increasingly want clean, portioned and recipe-ready meats
Companies like Licious and Zappfresh report that boneless meat commands a premium due to convenience, changing how meat is processed and marketed, despite traditional preferences for bone-in cuts.
Indian consumers are driving a surge in demand for boneless meat that is upending how chicken, mutton, pork and seafood are processed, stored and priced. Companies across the organized meat sector say the shift in preferences has been visible over the years, especially among younger households and consumers willing to pay more.
Zappfresh, an online meat delivery platform, says demand for boneless meat has risen 10-15% annually for a decade. Licious claims boneless now accounts for almost 30% of its portfolio – it didn’t provide a comparative figure.
“It comes down to willingness to pay. People who are happy to pay a premium choose boneless because the price difference is significant," said Deepanshu Manchanda, founder and CEO of Gurugram-based Zappfresh.
Even those who prefer not to shop online are willing to pay more for boneless meat. And it’s not a case of paying more for less.
“You trim more and lose more weight, so boneless has to cost more," said Imran Qureshi, a butcher in Delhi’s Ghaffar Manzil area. “Customers think we’re charging extra for less, but actually we earn less on boneless than on bone-in."
At Qureshi’s shop, bone-in chicken sells for ₹170- ₹200 per kg, while boneless chicken goes for ₹300- ₹350 per kg.
Boneless chicken commands a hefty premium — often 70–100% higher than bone-in. On Licious, boneless meat works out to about ₹688/kg versus ₹367-411/kg for bone-in, while on Zappfresh it’s ₹423/kg compared with ₹215/kg for bone-in.
Much of the boneless meat demand is driven by psychology as much as cooking behaviour.
Manchanda points to what happens in home kitchens: when bone-in meat is heated, natural pigments that look like blood seep out. That often scares customers — they think the meat isn’t clean, said Manchanda.
New-age recipes
He was referring to myoglobin seepage — a mix of muscle pigment, bone-marrow colour and natural juices released during heating — which many consumers mistake for blood. Boneless meat is less visually discomforting. Also, modern recipes for meat-based dishes rarely use bone-in meats.
“Whether it’s a burger or any snack, you’ll hardly find anything with bone now. New-age recipes lean heavily towards boneless because you can do so much more with it," he said.
“Young customers, officegoers and people who don’t want to touch raw meat or spend time cleaning it ask for boneless meat because it’s easy to cook," said Qureshi, adding that older families, especially those who make gravies or biryani at home, still prefer bone-in for flavour. “So it’s not that bone is disappearing; it just depends on who is buying and what they’re cooking," he added.
For many communities, bone-in isn’t just about taste — it’s ritual and identity. Traditional Muslim kitchens, coastal fish cultures, and Dalit and pastoral communities treat the bone as the most prized part: gelatin, marrow, texture and nutrition.
“Bone gives flavour — the broth, the marrow, that depth you can’t get from boneless," said Rashid Syed, a long-time meat buyer from Delhi. Cooking, he added, is instinctual and shaped by geography. “Mutton from the hills is leaner; lamb from the plains is fattier — you only understand that when you cook with bone," he said.
On the other side are consumers who grew up outside habitual meat cultures or simply don’t want the fuss.
“I’m from a Brahmin family — we never cooked meat," said Shruti Kaushik, a 27-year-old Delhi professional. “Now I eat it for protein, but I don’t know how to deal with bones — boneless just makes more sense."
Urban office-goers, nuclear couples and students in rentals see meat the way tech companies market it: clean, portioned and recipe-ready.
“I know I’m paying extra for boneless, but for me it’s about convenience," said Kaushik.
Risk of contamination
For meat companies, this consumer shift isn’t cheap because boneless meat needs a higher level of protection against the risk of contamination.
Boneless meat has a far higher surface exposure, which makes it lose the natural “sterile core" protection that bone-in carcasses offer, said Akshat Gupta, practice leader for food and agriculture at Praxis Global Alliance, a management consultancy firm.
More exposed flesh means it spoils faster, carries higher contamination risk and therefore needs tighter, unbroken cold-chain control than bone-in carcasses. It’s driving companies into colder territory.
Licious says it does not operate a deep-freeze model and runs a strictly controlled chilled range between 0°C and 4°C to preserve texture and quality. It has embedded tracking devices, real-time alerts and preventive maintenance systems across its delivery fleet, Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura, co-founders of Licious, said in a joint interaction with Mint.
Zappfresh is expanding into frozen foods—both vegetarian and non-vegetarian—adding individually quick freezing (IQF) lines, cold rooms, automation and new products to increase throughput and shelf life.
But it’s far from cheap. IQF lines alone can cost ₹50 lakh to ₹10 crore, with cold rooms and deep-freeze networks piling on heavy setup and power bills, Gupta of Praxis said. In India, boneless formats make up 15-20% of meat consumption, according to Praxis.
Boneless meat doesn’t just fetch a premium — they also cost more to make.
Deboning cuts into saleable weight, increases trim loss (the portion of the meat that is removed), and raises purge — the watery fluid meat releases after chilling or freezing, said Praxis’ Gupta. Purge reduces usable weight and affects product quality.
Once the bone is removed, he added, bacteria can spread across exposed surfaces, so even a slight temperature variation above 4°C can accelerate spoilage. With trim waste rising and margins thinning, meat processors are being pushed to monetize by-products rather than throw them away.
Reducing waste
“We continuously refine our cutting standards and processes so that the yield from every animal is maximized and avoidable waste is reduced at source," said Licious’ Gupta.
The company is building revenue streams beyond meat sales by diverting trimmings and offcuts into pharmaceuticals and agri-inputs. Gupta describes these as “specialized applications" that can turn undifferentiated waste into higher-utility ingredients, potentially opening new business lines.
The boneless boom isn’t just changing how meat is cut — it’s reshaping what gets made and sold. Boneless meat opens the door to specialized cuts, snackable portions and ready-to-cook portions. Frozen foods are expanding at 13-14% a year, Gupta noted, with the frozen meat and ready-to-cook market pegged at roughly ₹10,000 crore.
That growth is pulling in bigger incumbents. ITC snapped up ready-to-cook brand Meatigo and Prasuma — best known for their chicken momos and frozen snack lines — in a two-stage deal worth about ₹187 crore, taking its stake to 62.5% by 2027. The deal values Prasuma at just under ₹300 crore — more than twice its FY24 revenue.
Even legacy fast-food players are being dragged along. KFC — historically loyal to bone-in buckets — has found that stance turning off younger consumers, who prefer boneless white meat. The chain is rethinking its strategy, Bloomberg reported, after bone-in volumes fell 4% since 2020 while boneless grew 11%.
Yet, the online meat sector remains fragile financially. Zappfresh may have beaten larger rivals Licious and FreshToHome to the bourses in October, but capital scarcity continues to shadow the category. Zappfresh has raised roughly $16 million to date, compared with Licious’s $490 million and FreshToHome’s $286 million.
Failed experiments
Quick-commerce companies have dabbled in this segment too — Zepto launched its Relish private label in late 2023, while Blinkit and Swiggy have either avoided or quietly shuttered their meat experiments. Dunzo’s early “butcher-to-doorstep" bet also failed to stick, and Swiggy’s B2B meat partnerships have yet to crack the economics.
Larger platforms such as Licious and Captain Fresh have long flirted with going public but remain on the sidelines. Instead, Licious is doubling down on offline retail — which still drives most meat purchases in India — and plans to open 25 stores by year-end.
Meanwhile, the pivot to boneless meat is reshaping demand well beyond households. Zappfresh’s Manchanda says B2B buyers — including restaurants and food processors — increasingly seek boneless cuts to reduce in-house labour and standardize yields.
The squeeze now is on margins — more trimmings and deeper cold chains.
As Licious’ Gupta says, “The question is not just how to manage waste, but how little of it we can afford to create in the first place."
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