Assistant Manager - Category (Mutton)

Licious; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 1,200,000 - 2,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Licious, Bengaluru-based meat and seafood brand, is seeking a Category Manager with 4–6 years of experience in D2C/FMCG categories and ownership of P&L. You will drive end-to-end category performance, shape market strategy, and partner with Brand, Sourcing and Ops to deliver category growth.

You’ll build consumer-centric narratives, optimize pricing and promotions, and visit sourcing hubs to sustain trust and quality across the Mutton category.

Qualifications

• 4-6 years of experience in category management, preferably in D2C, FMCG or food & beverage with ownership of a standalone category and P&L.
• Strong commercial instinct; fluent with P&L and unit economics.
• Comfortable in unstructured, ground-level environments: willingness to visit wet markets, vendors, and sourcing hubs.
• Strong consumer intuition: understanding drivers, loyalty levers, and app engagement.
• Confident communicator across Brand, Sourcing, Operations and Tech.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end P&L for the Mutton category and drive gross margin alongside growth investments.
• Lead category & market transformation, building consumer trust via standardisation and premiumisation.
• Develop consumer-centric category narratives and growth through product storytelling and education.
• Collaborate with sourcing and backend teams to strengthen supply chain and vendor relationships.
• Drive cross-functional alignment and establish category review cadences, dashboards, and performance tracking.

Skills

P&L ownership

Category management

Data-driven decisions

Cross-functional collaboration

Vendor relationship management

Job description

We are Licious and we are a Bengaluru based meat and seafood company founded in 2015 by Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, our founders, foodies and friends. We pride ourselves on being India’s most successful D2C food-tech brand operating in 20 cities across the country delighting over 32 lac customers with our de-licious fresh meat and seafood!

Think you have what it takes to be the magic ingredient in the recipe that is Licious? Read on…

What Makes this Role Meaty?

1) P&L Ownership & Commercial Performance

• Owning the end-to-end P&L for the Mutton category
• Improving Gross Margin % with a clear path to burn-zero, balancing growth investment
• with profitability discipline.
• Building financial models, tracking category metrics closely and making data-backed
• decisions on pricing, promotions and assortment.

2) Category & Market Transformation

• Leading the shift of fresh meat from an unorganised, trust-deficit category to a structured,
• Building consumer trust through standardisation, transparency and premiumisation; and
• making affluent consumers aware of and invested in where their meat comes from.

3) Consumer & Brand Thinking

• Developing a sharp consumer lens for the category: understanding purchase drivers,
• barriers & loyalty levers and translating these into category initiatives that make people
• open the app.
• Partnering with the Brand team to build category narratives that highlight Licious
• mutton’s uncompromising quality standards
• Driving growth through product storytelling, consumer education and category evangelism.

4) Sourcing & Backend Collaboration

• Working in close partnership with sourcing teams; spending time at farms and processing
• units to deeply understand the supply chain and build strong vendor relationships.
• Bringing structure, accountability and rigour to sourcing operations that often work in
• unstructured, ground-up environments.

5) Cross-Functional Stakeholder Management

• Driving alignment across Brand, Sourcing, Operations, and Tech to deliver category
• outcomes.
• Being the voice of the category internally; pushing hard for resources, prioritisation and
• execution with conviction.
• Setting up category review cadences, dashboards and mechanisms to track performance and
• course-correct rapidly.

We hope that you..

• Bring 4-6 years of experience in category management, preferably in D2C, FMCG or food & beverage ideally with ownership of a standalone category and P&L.
• Have a strong commercial instinct; you are great with numbers, can read a P&L fluently, and make decisions with a clear eye on unit economics and business outcomes.
• Are comfortable in unstructured, ground-level environments: willing to visit wet markets, mutton vendors, and sourcing hubs to understand the category from the bottom up.
• Have strong consumer intuition: you think about what drives purchase, what builds loyalty, and what will make someone open the app more often.
• Are a confident communicator who can operate across functions: engaging credibly with Brand on campaign strategy and with Sourcing on vendor negotiations in the same week.