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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Serve Robotics Partners With Drone Delivery Specialist Wing To Pair Sidewalk With Aerial Delivery

Serve Robotics Inc. and Wing Aviation announced a pilot program this week that will combine their delivery methods to extend the reach of restaurant deliveries across densely populated urban areas. According to the announcement, Serve’s robots will collect orders from restaurant curbsides and transport them to Wing’s AutoLoader hubs, where Wing’s drones will carry the packages to customers up to six miles away.

Serve Robotics spun out of Uber in 2021 and has since worked with the likes of Uber Eats and 7-Eleven. According to the company, its robots have completed tens of thousands of deliveries in urban markets. For its part, Wing, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, says it has racked up 400,000 commercial deliveries across three continents, working with food delivery partners like DoorDash.

This announcement is interesting because it represents the first integration of sidewalk and aerial delivery. I’ll be watching if this thing ever moves out of pilot since, as drone delivery has moved significantly slower in terms of rollout than many providers had hoped, and combining it with sidewalk delivery adds another potential complication that could trip up cautious delivery operators and restaurants.

However, if Serve can nail handoffs at Drone pick-up areas as suggested in the video (the choppy editing looks a bit suspect to me), I can see this becoming a real peanut butter and jelly combo for quick deployment of food.

Watch as a Serve Sidewalk Robot Hands Off Food Delivery to a Wing Drone

Drone Delivery Operator Flytrex Receives FAA Go Ahead to Fly Without Visual Observers

Drone delivery startup Flytrex and its partner Causey Aviation Unmanned (CAU) announced today they have been granted an exemption by the FAA to operate drones ‘Beyond Visual Line of Sight’ (BVLOS) without the requirement of visual observers.

The newly acquired authorization enables both companies to scale their delivery services across American suburbs as the waver permits their drones to fly longer distances beyond a pilot’s visual line of site.

According to Flytrex, BVLOS approval is one of the most advanced regulatory approvals to date and paves the way for the scaling of CAU and Flytrex’s delivery operations, contingent upon meeting certain conditions and limitations.

Automatic Drone Pickup | Flytrex

The news comes on the heels of the company’s unveiling of its autonomous pickup feature, which enables Flytrex to automate food delivery via drone fully. With the new capability, a Flytrex drone flies to the restaurant, picks up the food for delivery, and takes the order to the customer’s home.

Flytrex drones, which can carry up to 5.5 pounds of food, fly up to speeds of 32 miles per hour. And while the drones can handle each mission entirely autonomously, the company says that they still have FAA-certified drone operators overseinge each mission.

The BVLOS approval comes after CAU, the operator for Flytrex, received Part 135 certification in January, essentially giving the the company the official go ahead to deliver food, beverages, and other goods across the country.

Wing to Hit 100,000th Drone Delivery

Wing, the drone delivery spin-off from Google X, announced yesterday that it will pass 100,000 customer deliveries “in the next few days.” The milestone is another stepping stone for the nascent drone delivery sector, as it inches closer to more widespread adoption around the globe.

In its announcement, Wing said that 50,000 of those deliveries were to customers in Logan, Australia over the last eight months. Wing added that it made almost 4,500 deliveries in the first week of August, which translated into a Logan resident received a drone delivery approximately every 30 seconds during Wing’s service hours. Wing also shared that over the past year its drones have dropped off more than 10,000 cups of coffee, 1,700 snack packs, and 1,200 “hot chooks” (what Australians call roasted chicken).

Drones are actually a pretty good technology for food delivery, and have the potential to radically alter the delivery landscape. Drones are fast, arriving at their destination in minutes so hot food stays hot. They can reduce traffic on the road by replacing full-sized cars making deliveries. And in the age of COVID, they can provide contactless delivery.

We’ve already seen startups like Manna make thousands of deliveries in Galway, Ireland. Here in the U.S., Kroger started piloting its first drone delivery in Ohio, and Walmart has partnered with Flytrex for drone deliveries and invested in on-demand drone delivery startup DroneUp.

Despite all these advances, there are still plenty of regulatory hurdles for drone deliveries to overcome before they can truly scale on a global basis. Drones need flight paths cleared, specific safety measures installed, and citizens need reassurances that they aren’t being spied upon (the CEO of Manna told me that this is a top concern for people).

Those concerns, however are steadily being worked out and as Wing and other companies are showing, drone delivery going mainstream is not that far off.

AeroFarms Partners With Nokia to Build Out Drone Control and Other Indoor Ag Tech

Vertical farming company AeroFarms announced today an official partnership with Nokia Bell Labs to further develop the technology capabilities of its industrial-scale indoor ag operation. 

Currently, New Jersey-based AeroFarms uses a proprietary system that combines machine vision and machine learning technologies with the company’s agSTACK software, custom lighting, and aeroponics. The goal is to create an indoor farming environment where temperature, humidity levels, and other environmental factors are fully controlled, and where automation can take over some of the tasks around the farm.

According to today’s press release,  Nokia Bell Labs, which is the research arm of Nokia, will contribute its autonomous drone control and orchestration systems to the partnership as well as imaging and sensor tech and new AI capabilities.

These drones fly over the crops and autonomously image each plant to collect more data on overall plant health. AeroFarms CTO Roger Buelow said in a statement today that scientists and engineers have been working for two years to train these systems in plant biology.

From the press release:

“Nokia Bell Labs’ machine vision technology has enabled the most precise data capture yet, down to the level of individual plants, using leaf size segmentation, quantification, and pixel-based scanning to identify consistency and variation. Going beyond what even the human eye can perceive, this state-of-the art imaging technology enables the gathering of immense insights about a plant including its leaf size, stem length, coloration, curvature, spotting, and tearing.“

The end goal of all of this is to improve plant quality, nutritional profile, and taste, as well as crop yield.

To what extent drone imaging can help with that remains to be seen. So far, few indoor ag companies employ drones for any tasks on the farm, Finland’s iFarm being a notable exception. Earlier this year, the company announced a partnership with Sadarah Partners to build an indoor farm in Qatar that will include drone tech. 

AeroFarms and Nokia have worked together since 2020, testing the technologies with some of AeroFarms’ crops. As of today, the tech capabilities are “ready to scale” to all of AeroFarms’ crops as well as to the company’s forthcoming farms in Danville, Virginia and the Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates. 

 

Are Robots and Drones the Next Residential Community Perk?

The New Haven in Ontario Ranch residential community boasts 12 acres of private amenities such as parks, a pool, a clubhouse and… robots and drones. That’s right, residents of this “Connected and Convenient Community,” in Ontario, California are getting some sci-fi upgrades that further illustrate how technology is driving a new wave of premium perks for those who can afford it.

Last week New Haven celebrated its grand opening with an event that featured the mayor of Ontario receiving a drone delivery of beer and other goodies from the New Haven Marketplace and the Brew Haven brewery, both of which are located at the community. But this wasn’t a one-off thing. Drone delivery is being baked into the growth of New Haven and will be offered as an ongoing service.

Brookfield Residential, the developer of New Haven, is in the process of building 59,000 news homes and has partnered with the City of Ontario and Airspace link to create a drone-safe and drone-friendly community. An Airspace Link rep emailed The Spoon explaining:

The next phase is to permit a designated take-off and secured landing location with access control for drone delivery operators to provide the services for the local retailers to the community. Final phase will include the deployment of some physical infrastructure to support these operations at scale (surveillance, deconfliction, communications).

But New Haven’s tech ambitions aren’t solely in the sky. In April, the community rolled out Gita, a small robot on wheels that paired with and followed a person around, acting as another set of hands to carry drinks/snacks/whatever. That program seems to have ended in June and we’ve reached out to New Haven to see if Gita will make a comeback.

It’s not too hard to see how perks like drone delivery or a robot assistant could sway people to buy a home in a residential community. Drone deliveries take just minutes so restaurant meals arrive piping hot, which would be a nice option to have on hand. And having a robot carry stuff for you isn’t just convenient, it seems like you could bundle in a robot with the purchase of each home so everyone got their own li’l mobile assistant.

New Haven’s drones and robots are part of a larger movement to include high-tech amenities in high-end residential communities. Cashierless checkout convenience stores in apartment complexes is another perk we’ve seen pop up over the past year, with Aramark and AWM Smart Shelf opening such a store at the Nineteen01 complex in Santa Ana, CA, and Accel Robotics opening up one at the Vantage Pointe high-rise in San Diego, CA. Ghost kitchens could be another amenity if the recent deal between C3 and Akera Living catches on with residents of Kenect communities.

The goal with all these perks to to place them on-site so people don’t really need to leave their community. They can access whatever they need in the comfort of their own compound. In the case of Accel Robotics, offers “last step” delivery so residents don’t even have to leave their apartments to get goods.

Of course, the only way to access these perks is to have enough money to afford a house in a high-end development. New Haven homes range from the $500,000s for townhomes to the high $600,000s for a single family home. It’s certainly nothing new that those with money get first access to modern conveniences, but hopefully tech companies will find a way to be more equitable in distributing their innovations to communities that can actually use such conveniences, rather than just those that can afford it.

Valqari Launching Single-Family Drone Mailboxes Later this Year, Targeting $1,500 Price Point

Valqari is looking to launch a retail, single-family version of its drone delivery smart locker later this year, and is working to get the cost of it below $1,500. Valqari Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Walsh laid out the company’s plans during his presentation on StartEngine Shark Pitch with Kevin O’Leary (Mr. Wonderful of Shark Tank) today.

Valqari makes drop-off lockers for drone delivery. These lockers are installed in a fixed location, and drones carrying food or packages land on top of them. The food or package is shuttled from the drone to a designated locker where a customer or delivery person retrieves them via a mobile app.

Walsh spoke at our ArticulATE food robotics conference back in May. While that conversation focused mainly on B2B operations (i.e., restaurants flying meals to Valqari lockers for a third-party delivery person to pick up), he did mention that consumer versions were on the company’s roadmap.

During his pitch, O’Leary asked Walsh mainly about Valqari’s patents and the B2B applications and costs for the service, and the topic of food delivery was not raised in their conversation. Walsh said that there will be a number of payment options (lease versus buy), but O’Leary pressed for actual numbers. Walsh said that the cost would be between $32,000 and $35,000 for the hardware plus a $300/month subscription for business use. Walsh then said that Valqari will launch a single-family version of its locker later this year with the company “working” to bring the cost for that down below $1,500 with an undisclosed monthly subscription. Walsh also said that Valqari revenues are projected to be $12 million in 2022.

The idea of having a smart drone delivery platform in your front yard is enticing. Drone delivery of food, in particular makes a lot of sense when you consider how fast a hot meal can arrive at your door. But even if a retail version of Valqari’s lockers were available later this year in the U.S., drone delivery is still very new and not available everywhere. Big retailers like Kroger and Walmart are already running pilot programs, but laws and regulations around drone delivery are still being worked out. So before you plunk down $1,500, make sure that fancy drone mailbox won’t just sit unused at the end of your driveway.

Walmart Invests in On-Demand Drone Delivery Startup DroneUp

Walmart announced this week that they’ve made an investment in on-demand drone delivery startup DroneUp. The latter provides delivery services to its customers via on-demand access to its network of over 10,000-strong pilot workforce

The deal is an evolution of Walmart’s existing relationship with DroneUp, who the company partnered with in 2020 to launch trial deliveries of COVID-19 test kits. According to this week’s release, Walmart and DroneUp delivered hundreds of kits and were able to do so much faster than typical delivery.

In DroneUp, Walmart has invested in a leading third party drone delivery services company. DroneUp was the first services operator to use the FAA part 107.39 waiver which allows them to operate drone delivery services over people and cars. Additionally, the company arguably operates the closest thing to an Uber-for-drone delivery platform with its patented technology that matches delivery jobs with pilots in local proximity to a job and sends them an offer through an app.

For Walmart, the DroneUp deal lines up with the company’s past strategy of working with third-party delivery providers rather than building their own drone delivery technology and workforce. This approach contrasts significantly with Amazon, who kicked off the world-at-large’s interest in the idea of drone delivery when Jeff Bezos famously debuted the PrimeAir drone on 60 Minutes.

So while Amazon (and Google) have both built their own proprietary delivery drone platforms as well as invested billions in all that goes into building their own drone delivery networks, Walmart is essentially sidling up closer with a company that turnkeys much of the work for them. DroneUp already has access to a geographically dispersed and wide network of pilots and has all the regulatory approvals needed to start delivery immediately.

According to the announcement, Walmart will begin its first trial of on-demand local delivery in its home town of Bentonville, Arkansas in the next few months.

Kroger’s Drone Delivery Officially Takes Off in Ohio

Kroger launched its first retail drone delivery on Wednesday of this week in Centerville, Ohio. The Dayton Daily News reported that the drone’s maiden voyage dropped off two packages of rice to Centerville Mayor Brooks Compton on the front lawn of the city’s offices.

Kroger announced the drone delivery program at the beginning of May, and while it had been running test flights in the Centerville area since then, Wednesday’s mayoral run was the first official delivery for the service. According to the Dayton Daily News, Kroger customers within a mile of the 1095 S. Main St. store can place an order for drone delivery and, as of now, there is no delivery fee for the service.

As we wrote last month, Kroger isn’t just looking to drop off food on your front yard. It’s aiming to get you items whenever/wherever you need it. Think: picnic supplies to a park or drinks at the beach. The drones can carry a five-pound payload and eligible orders should arrive within 15 minutes.

Kroger officially launching this program is the latest step towards drone delivery becoming a reality around the globe. So far in 2021, Flytrex has received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to expand its drone delivery program (which includes Walmart grocery deliveries) in North Carolina, Manna has been conducting 50 – 100 drone deliveries a day in Ireland, and Pizza Hut has partnered with Dragontail Systems for drone deliveries in Tel Aviv, Israel.

While there are regulatory and safety hurdles that still need to be overcome, drones hold a lot of promise, especially for food-related deliveries. Drones are faster because they don’t get stuck in traffic, so hot food or coffee arrives hot. Because they are up in the air, drones don’t add to traffic congestion on the roads. And they could also potentially make deliveries more economical because one operator can coordinate more drone deliveries per hour.

Kroger’s drone delivery will probably be more of a novel curiosity for customers at first. But if it can fulfill the promise of faster, more convenient food, we’ll be writing a lot more about drone delivery launches across the U.S. throughout this year.

iFarm and Al Sadarah Group to Boost Food Security in Qatar Through Vertical Farming

Finland’s iFarm announced a multi-year partnership today with Sadarah Partners to build out a commercial-scale indoor vertical farm in the State of Qatar, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. The goal of the partnership is to bring more local food production inside Qatar’s own borders and at the same time produce greens, flowers, and berries year-round.

The Al Sadarah Group owns Qatar-based indoor farming company Agrico Organic Farm, with whom iFarm will work directly on the project. The two entities will build out an indoor vertical farm based on iFarm’s technology, which includes a number of different tools that help automate the maintenance and management of the indoor grow process. This time around, that includes drones, which will be equipped with computer vision and used to monitor crop health and yields. Computer vision can track the size, weight, and health of each crop, and also spot potential diseases and other problems. 

The forthcoming farm will be the first farm in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries that uses AI and drone technology to grow food.

The bigger-picture goal here is to make Qatar more self sufficient when it comes to food production. Food security issues in Qatar pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic, as the 2017 Gulf rift halted food supply lines into the country and brought the issue of food security into the forefront. Since then, Qatar has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into food self sufficiency.

However, cultivating crops in the country is difficult because of Qatar’s hot temperatures, lack of rainwater, and desert climate. Fertile soil is also limited. Those factors make the country and prime candidate for more indoor, controlled-environment farming. The iFarm-Agrico partnership is also part of the hugely ambitious goal to reach 70 percent self-sufficiency in food production by 2023. 

iFarm and Agrico will start with strawberries and leafy greens on their farm, as well as some edible flowers. For iFarm, the partnership is one of many it has around Europe and the Middle East. 

Flytrex Gets Thumbs Up From the FAA for Backyard Drone Delivery in North Carolina

Flytrex, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based drone delivery startup, announced today that it will be expanding its service in Fayetteville, North Carolina, after receiving approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the FAA granted a waiver to Flytrex that allows the company to operate its drones above people, clearing the way for delivery of food, drinks and other goods directly to consumers’ backyards.

Drone operations will be conducted in cooperation with Causey Aviation Unmanned, and those interested in getting a latte delivered by drone will need to download the Flytrex app to place their order with participating restaurants and stores. Once fulfilled, the order is flown to the customer’s backyard where the drone hovers in the air and lowers the payload down to the ground by wire. Flytrex drones can carry a 6.5 pound payload up to 40 mph with a range of six miles.

Walmart has been part of Flytrex’s Fayetteville program since September of last year, offering drone delivery of select groceries and household goods. With today’s announcement, the number of homes in Fayetteville eligible for on-demand drone delivery from Walmart will expand, though more specifics were not provided.

It’s said that change happens slowly and then all at once. We appear to be on the cusp of the “all at once” part of that timeline as drone delivery is fast becoming a reality for consumers around the world. Over in Galway, Ireland, Manna has been doing 50 – 100 drone deliveries a day. Here in the U.S., Kroger announced a drone delivery pilot with Drone Express in Centerville, Ohio this Spring.

One of the potentially big advantages of drone delivery is speed. By flying above roads and traffic, drones can deliver hot coffee and restaurant meals in a manner of minutes. The food doesn’t spend as much time traveling and arrives hot. This means that drone companies can operate more deliveries per hour than a traditional third-party delivery driver (and that a full-sized car isn’t hauling a single cup of coffee). Manna says that a single drone operator can do 20 deliveries per hour.

For its part, Walmart seems to be getting serious about drones. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette posted a picture today of a drone launchpad being built by Walmart in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, just 11 miles from the company’s headquarters in Bentonville.

We had an entire panel devoted to the present and future of drone delivery with Manna CEO, Bobby Healy, and Valqari CEO, Ryan Walsh at our ArticulATE food robotics and automation conference last week. You can watch the full video of it and all of the day’s sessions by becoming a Spoon Plus member.

Precision AI Raises $20M Seed Round for Drone-Powered Surgical Herbicide Application

Precision AI, an automated precision agriculture startup, announced today that it has raised a $20 million in Seed round of equity and grant funding. The round was co-led by At One Ventures and the Industrial Innovation Venture Fund of BDC Capital, with participation from Fulcrum Global Capital and Golden Opportunities, as well as non-dilutive co-investment from Sustainable Development Technology Canada and Protein Industries Canada.

Based in Regina, Canada, Precision AI uses a combination of drones and computer vision to conduct precise application of herbicides and pesticides on weeds. Precision AI’s system deploys swarms of drones that fly over farm fields. The drones can carry a 25 lbs. payload and have a 55 minute flight time. Equipped with both cameras and a sprayer, the drones’ system automatically identifies weeds and sprays them with specific dose of pesticide or herbicide.

The goal is to reduce the waste and cost that comes from indiscriminate, broad application of chemicals to tackle weeds. Additionally, Precision AI’s approach only sprays the weeds, not the crops themselves, so there are fewer chemicals applied to the food we consumer. Precision AI says its drone approach to weed control on large acreage crops is much cheaper than traditional large farming machinery and could reduce the amount of pesticide use by up to 95 percent while maintaining crop yield and saving farmers $52 per acre per growing season.

Precision AI sits at the Nexus of a few trends happening in agriculture. The first, fittingly, is bringing precision control to farms. Sensors and IoT allow the monitoring of things like soil moisture, plant temperature, and fertilization on a more granular level. To get these levels of precision, we’re also seeing automation coming to farms in the form of robots that do everything from carrying gear to zapping weeds with electricity to harvesting crops. Drones are also being employed more monitor farm conditions and plant growth and even pick fruit.

Automation on the farm is actually a topic we’ll be tackling at our upcoming ArticulATE food robotics and automation virtual summit on May 18th. We’ll have speakers from Future Acres, AgShift and AgFunder discussing the opportunities that lie ahead for automated precision agriculture. Get your ticket today!

Kroger Taking Flight with Drone Delivery Pilot This Spring

Kroger announced today that it is working with Drone Express, a division of TELEGRID Technologies, to launch a drone delivery pilot starting this spring.

The first test of the new drone delivery will begin this week near the Kroger Marketplace in Centerville, Ohio (just outside of Dayton). Actual customer deliveries are scheduled to begin later this spring with a second pilot launching this summer at a Ralphs in California.

But Kroger isn’t just planning on sending drones to your front yard. In the press announcement, the company indicated that it’s looking to get customers the last minute items they need, wherever that may be. So that could be picnic supplies to a park, or cold drinks at a hot beach. Kroger said that drone deliveries will be limited to a payload of around five pounds and deliveries of eligible orders should arrive within 15 minutes.

When we talk about drone food delivery, it’s usually centered around restaurants. Because drones can reach their destinations so quickly, they are shaping up to be a viable option for hot restaurant meal delivery. But we are starting to see drone delivery gain traction with grocery retailers. In Ireland, Manna has a partnership with Tesco, and here in the U.S., Walmart is working with Flytrex to test out drone deliveries in North Carolina and Rouses Market is using Deuce Drone to trial deliveries in Alabama.

It should also be noted that with this drone trial, Kroger continues to show its tech-forward thinking. So far this year, Kroger has opened the first of its robot-powered customer fulfillment centers, and started piloting more automated checkout via Caper’s smart shopping carts. Plus the fact that Kroger is launching two drone delivery pilots this year shows the company is being more aggressive about aerial delivery than its competitors (at least publicly).

If you are interested in the future of drones delivery, then you must come to ArticulATE, our food automation virtual summit happening on May 18. We’ll have a full panel devoted to drones featuring the CEO of Manna. Get your ticket today!