Starting today, eagerly customers of the American pizza restaurant Papa Johns living in a corner of southern North Carolina will have the opportunity to receive their food from the air, thanks to a new partnership with Alphabet’s. an unmanned aircraft company, Wing. But Papa Johns signature pizzas will not be served. Instead, bird-loving North Carolinians will have to choose between three types of sandwiches, the newest addition to the fast-food chain: Philly cheesesteak, chicken ranch, or the beef and mushroom variety.
Drone delivery is popping up in more communities across the United States and around the world. Questions about the long-term economics and regulatory picture of unmanned aerial vehicles remain, but Wing is proud to partner with Walmart, Paneraand DoorDash and ships by air to customers in four metro areas: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston. (In 2019, Wing received the first US Federal Aviation Administration certification allowing a drone delivery company to operate in the country.) Competing drone companies, including Local line, Amazon Prime Airand Flytrex, flight packages, medical supplies, and Chipotle burritos in special communities in countries such as Ghana, Japan and the United States.
But until recently, drone operators have struggled to fly full-sized pizzas. For companies hoping to enter the food delivery space, this is unfortunate: 11 percent of the US population eats a slice on any given day, according to the US Department of Agriculture. In a the booming restaurant industrysend them to customers it’s still big business. But the realities of physics, engineering, and the restaurant business conspire to make pizza a challenge for drones.
Flying Pizzas
Traditionally, pizza is an experimental choice for technology delivery. The popular and cheap combination of cheese bread is loaded self-driving cars and self-driving delivery vehicles by road and it has been collected by robots. It’s a quick and satisfying option, especially for families with busy schedules. And in theory, it’s a great fit for automated drones, among fast delivery options—people love fresh, hot pizza.
But flying one with a drone requires extra work, says Wing CEO Adam Woodworth. “Pizza comes in a very different box, with a larger flat area,” he says. They are not usually aerodynamic. Also, “you don’t want a tilted pizza.”
Wing’s relatively lightweight drones are designed to carry three specific package sizes; right now, pizza boxes are not one of them. Woodworth says a new design is on the horizon. “I want to see pizzas coming to me from the sky,” he says.
Flytrex, an Israeli drone services company, announced late last month that it had finally solved the problem. In partnership with rival pizza chain Little Caesars, the company began delivering by drone up to two large pizzas (16 inches each), plus soda and bread, in Wylie, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. That flying comes courtesy of a new larger drone, capable of carrying up to 8.8 pounds for four miles.
Courtesy of Flytrex
