From today, looking forward Customers of American pizzeria chain Papa Johns living in a corner of southern North Carolina will have the opportunity to have their food delivered from the sky, thanks to a new collaboration with Alphabet’s drone business, Wing. But Papa Johns’ signature pizzas won’t be offered. Instead, drone-loving North Carolinians will have to choose between three types of sandwiches, a newer product for the fast-food chain: the Philly cheese steak, chicken and bacon ranch, or steak and mushroom varieties.
Drone deliveries are appearing in more and more communities across the United States and around the world. Questions about the long-term economics and regulatory situation of unmanned aerial vehicles persist, but Wing touts partnerships with Walmart, PaneraAnd PorteDash and delivers by air to customers in four metropolitan areas: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. (In 2019, Wing received the first certificate from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration authorizing a drone delivery company to operate in the country.) Competing drone companies including Zipline, Amazon Prime Airand Flytrex, flying packages, medical supplies and Chipotle Burritos in some communities in countries like Ghana, Japan and the United States.
But until very recently, drone operators struggled to fly life-size pizzas. For companies hoping to break into the food delivery business, that’s unfortunate: 11 percent of the U.S. population eats a slice every day, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In a rapidly diversifying catering sectorbring them to customers it’s still a big deal. But the realities of physics, engineering and food service combine to make pizza a challenge for drones.
Flying pizzas
Traditionally, pizza has been the experimental technology delivery of choice. The familiar and cheap cheese-sauce-bread combo was loaded onto autonomous cars And autonomous sidewalk delivery vehicles and was assembled by robots. It’s a quick and satisfying option, especially for busy, time-strapped families. And in theory, it’s a great fit for automated drones, one of the fastest delivery options: people love hot, fresh pizza.
But transporting one by drone requires additional work, says Adam Woodworth, CEO of Wing. “The pizza comes in a very different box, with a large flat surface,” he says. They are not naturally aerodynamic. Also, “you don’t want a pizza to be tilted.”
Wing’s relatively lightweight drones are designed to carry three specific package sizes: right now, pizza boxes aren’t one of them. Woodworth says a new design is on the horizon. “I want to see pizza coming from the sky,” he says.
Flytrex, an Israeli-based drone delivery company, announced late last month that it had finally resolved the problem. Working with rival pizza chain Little Caesars, the company began delivering up to two large pizzas (16 inches each), as well as soda and bread, by drone to Wylie, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The jump is thanks to a new, much larger drone capable of carrying up to 8.8 pounds four miles.
Courtesy of Flytrex
Unlike Wing’s more conventional flying machine, which looks like a traditional airplane with extra propellers, Flytrex’s Sky2 looks more like a flying spider. When pizza is its passenger, a square delivery bag hangs from an attached hook. It took Flytrex two years to achieve what co-founder Amit Regev calls the “slightly unique design.” A flat, wing-shaped net attached to the drone helps keep the pizza level as it flies through the air.
The drone has been successfully delivering pizzas in Texas for about five months, the company reports, with hot packages arriving at their delivery points an average of 4.5 minutes after takeoff. “It’s not the sexiest drone, but it gets there,” Regev says.
The buzz in numbers
The biggest challenge to flying pizzas, or any other low-cost food delivery option, is not physics, but economics. Drone manufacturers must find a way to reduce costs per delivery, even if they are limited by payload constraints (drones can’t carry too much stuff), the range of their vehicles, weather challenges, and various regulatory hurdles. Restaurants need to figure out how to create flight-friendly packaging, train their employees to handle drone deliveries, and think about the physical space needed to get the machines in and out.
Regev says the decade-old company discovered, after years of trial and error, that it had to rely on retail workers, not its own specially trained drone delivery operators, to make it work financially. The process should be “simple, simple,” he says, and include as much automation as possible. “We spend a lot of time on Excel sheets,” he says.
Papa Johns’ partnership with Wing will begin in a single franchise in Indian Trail, North Carolina, outside Charlotte, although the chain intends to expand the delivery option, according to chief digital and technology officer Kevin Vasconi. Part of this expansion will involve training workers in the adjusted “workflows” needed to make drone deliveries. “We have an internal business case,” says Vasconi. Drones can be especially useful during peak food times, he says, when workers and delivery drivers are working hard to get everything out.
Vasconi also thinks drones are just plain fun. “It’s a kind of feature that surprises and delights,” he says. (Customers will be able to opt out of drone delivery if they wish.) “Ideally, we will be able to offer the full menu.”
