On June 1, an unmanned aircraft took to the cloudy skies over Mobile, Ala., carrying a decidedly sunnier payload: smoothies from Tropical Smoothie Cafe.
It launched from the roof of a shopping center and flew about a third of a mile to the west, where it touched down atop the BB&T Financial Centre. There, flight personnel unloaded the cargo and brought it inside, where a group of customers waited in a conference room to receive the beverages.
The process took about three minutes and went off without a hitch. Operation Super Smoothie was a success.
It was conducted by a company called Deuce Drone, a last-mile airborne delivery service founded in Mobile in 2019. After some pandemic setbacks, Operation Super Smoothie marked a big step in the company’s plan to use autonomous drones to deliver food and other products over short distances.
“We probably could have the very next day began revenue operations,” said Ed Fienga, Deuce’s COO. But the company is taking a “crawl, walk, run” approach to this new business, he said, and right now, it is still crawling as it works to perfect its software and operations before offering more regular service.
Drone delivery is no longer the pie-in-the-sky idea it might have once seemed. Some of the biggest companies in the world, including Amazon, Google and Walmart, as well as the U.S. Postal Service, have been exploring the technology. More recently, smaller third-party providers like Deuce have begun to gain traction, promising faster and more affordable last-mile delivery that is less harmful to the environment.
In June, Southern California chicken chain El Pollo Loco began testing drone delivery through a partnership with provider Flytrex. It is perhaps the most high-profile use of drones by a U.S. restaurant, though it, too, is just getting off the ground. The chain has completed deliveries from “a few” locations so far, said Andy Rebhun, the company’s VP of digital, with plans to eventually offer drone delivery as an option for rewards members.
“It’s important to note that we’re still in the pilot phase,” he said in an email. “Our goal is to have regular deliveries from 10 locations soon,” with further expansion to be determined by demand and Federal Aviation Administration rules.
El Pollo Loco’s “test and learn” process was heralded with a splashy video and catchy name (Air Loco), but the chain clearly views the program as more than a publicity stunt. Early tests have revealed some intriguing benefits: The drones allow it to make more deliveries per hour than traditional third-party delivery, with average fulfillment time clocking in at 12 minutes, versus 37 the old-fashioned way, over distances of up to 2 miles, Rebhun said. And though it is still working out the math, it believes drones could reduce the cost of delivery by as much as 30%.
Air Loco is part of Tel Aviv-based Flytrex’s plan to bring drone delivery to the suburbs—an enormous market that Flytrex CEO Yariv Bash said is underserved by traditional delivery, which becomes less efficient over longer distances.
“You have a human being driving a 1-ton car to bring you a hamburger and some fries,” he said. “As you can imagine, that’s pretty expensive.”
A video still shows an Air Loco drone landing outside an El Pollo Loco restaurant. / Courtesy of El Pollo Loco
In addition to the El Pollo Loco test, Flytrex has operations in Fayetteville and Mayford, N.C., where it delivers from Walmart and nearby restaurants. Customers can order through Flytrex’s app and have their items dropped at either a public pickup point or in their backyard, provided they’re in the delivery zone.
The company has completed “thousands” of deliveries, and tens of thousands of people have downloaded its app. “Every week, we add more houses,” Bash said.
Despite those developments, it could be a while before U.S. airspace is crisscrossed with people’s lunches. Drone technology, after all, is still new. Fienga noted that manufacturers have not yet begun to produce drones built specifically for delivery. And as batteries become lighter and longer-lasting, drones will be able to fly further with heavier payloads, he said.
Federal aviation rules are another obstacle. The FAA currently requires commercial drones to stay in sight of a “visual observer” and prohibits them from being flown over people, among other restrictions.
“That does limit the distance or the reach of what we’re doing,” Fienga said. “But here in Mobile [for Operation Super Smoothie], the pilot was on the roof of the retail center and was able to have a clear line of sight to the rooftop of BB&T.”
As it looks to add more launch areas, Deuce is targeting spots that are similarly dense and that also provide high ground with clear sightlines.
“There are certain areas that I think are just very, very conducive to drone operations, especially with travel picking up now,” such as clusters of hotels, which tend to be surrounded by restaurants, he said.
Deuce Drones' landing zone atop the BB&T building. The QR code helps guide the drone to the landing zone. / Photograph courtesy of Deuce Drones
Flytrex worked with the FAA to certify each of its drones as if they were airplanes, giving it special clearance to fly over people in select areas, including 2,000 backyards in Fayetteville. It's on its way to full approval that will allow it to deliver to any backyard in the U.S., Bash said.
Both companies’ drones are autonomous, but there is still human involvement in the delivery process for now. Each has a certified human monitor who can override the automation if something goes wrong. And employees from both companies are responsible for picking up the food and loading it onto the drone.
That means restaurants don’t have to do anything differently than they normally would for a delivery order. “There are no material changes to the way we provide delivery,” Rebhun said of El Pollo Loco’s test.
Flytrex has been operating out of container officers near its partner businesses, but will eventually be remote, Bash said, with workers “sitting on the other side of the country in a closed room,” overseeing up to 20 deliveries at a time.
Deuce plans to eventually automate the entire process, from pickup to dropoff, removing all human involvement. Its website includes a rendering of an elevator-like receiving system designed to load goods directly onto a drone.
“With Deuce Drone, your operations and workflow don't change, but your delivery capabilities do,” the website says.
Deuce's DronePort package system / Rendering courtesy of Deuce Drones