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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Food & Retail Drone Delivery Specialist Flytrex Gets FAA Approval For One Mile Deliveries

Flytrex, a startup specializing in on-demand delivery of food and retail items, announced this morning it had received approval from the FAA to expand its delivery radius to one nautical mile across all its operating stations in North Carolina.

According to a release sent to The Spoon, the company, which received approval in May of this year to operate over people, has completed “thousands” of deliveries to customers. With over 10 thousand potential customers within the company’s new expanded delivery radius, expect that pace to pick up further.

Customers interested in a drone-delivered meal can order via the Flytrex app with participating stores and restaurants. The app sends updates to the customer while the package is en route and, once the drone arrives, the package is lowered by wire into the customer’s backyards. Flytrex drones, operated in partnership with drone delivery operator Causey Aviation Unmanned, have a payload of over 6 pounds.

The news comes on the heels of a $40 million Series C funding round announced last month. The funding, which the company is using to develop its hardware further and expand its business development practices, should solidify the company as an early leader in the drone delivery market. The company, which launched its first drone delivery system in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2017, has established partnerships with the likes of Walmart and Chili’s. Flytrex is one of eight companies participating in the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) BEYOND Initiative, a program focused on finding solutions for challenges of unmanned air service integration.

Flytrex does have some competition, including the high-profile efforts of Amazon through its Prime Air group. However, nearly nine years after Jeff Bezos first wowed the world when he teased the idea of Amazon drone delivery, the mega e-tailer’s efforts have shown outward signs of potential struggle as of late. On the other hand, Manna, another backyard drone delivery specialist, continues to plug away in Europe, reaching a delivery milestone of 50 to 100 deliveries per day in the spring of 2021.

“Drone delivery is reaching new heights faster than anyone could have expected,” Yariv Bash, co-founder, and CEO of Flytrex, said. “This approval from the FAA will allow us to cater to the growing demand for fast and efficient on-demand delivery in suburban America. We look forward to continuing on this exciting flight path, bringing five-minute delivery to the millions of backyards across the USA.”

Walmart’s Had a Big Month When it Comes to Autonomous Robot Delivery

It’s bragging time in Bentonville.

That’s because America’s biggest grocery retailer recently achieved two big milestones in autonomous delivery.

The first milestone is on the autonomous middle-mile front where Walmart and partner Gatik announced they had initiated daily driverless-truck delivery in Walmart’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart had started working with the maker of middle-mile autonomous box trucks in 2019 and by last December, the two received approval from the Arkansas State Highway Commission to remove drivers from the vehicles. In August, the two started trialing autonomous delivery runs between Walmart dark stores and local markets. And last week, the companies announced they are doing multiple driver-less truck runs per day, seven days a week.

The Gatik Autonomous Delivery Vehicle Delivering Products for Walmart

The other big autonomous delivery news for Walmart is the launch of the company’s drone delivery service.

This week the retailer’s drone partner Zipline announced the two had launched a drone delivery service in the northwestern Arkansas of Pea Ridge. Zipline’s technology utilizes a 25-foot take-off and landing platform which is located directly behind the Walmart Neighborhood Market location in Pea Ridge. There, a Walmart employee hands a package to a Zipline employee, who will then load the package into the belly of the drone for delivery. Once the drone reaches the delivery destination, the package is dropped over its target, where it will float down to earth thanks to an attached biodegradable parachute. The service area is within a 50-mile radius of the store.

The launch of drone delivery has been a long time in the making for Walmart. The company first started testing drones way back in 2015 and, ever since that time, has been running pilots and inking partnerships. In the meantime, Walmart’s competitors have been investigating drone delivery, which is perhaps why the giant retailer has picked up the pace over the past year.

Zipline Partners With Walmart on Commercial Drone Delivery

So Walmart appears to be making headway in drones and autonomous middle mile delivery, but what about road or sidewalk delivery to consumers? The last time we heard of Walmart making any moves in that space was when the company trialed with Nuro and Udelv in 2019, but they’ve been relatively quiet on that front. And as for sidewalk bots, the company hasn’t really shown any interest publicly, but that’s not to say they aren’t talking to folks.

Dawn of the Robocorn? Micro-Fulfillment Robot Specialist Fabric Raises $200M on $1 Billion Valuation

Fabric, a maker of robotic micro-fulfillment solutions for grocery and e-commerce retailers, announced today they have raised $200 million in a Series C funding round. The new funding puts the company’s valuation at $1 billion.

Formerly called Common Sense Robotics, Fabric works with large online grocers and retailers such as Walmart, Instacart, and FreshDirect to build automated micro-fulfillment centers via a mix of fulfillment-as-a-service and hybrid ownership models. The company’s solution involves an intricate blend of robotics, vertically stacked storage of products, and human operators and packers that help package up the final delivery and handoff to delivery drivers.

You can see what a Fabric micro-fulfillment center (MFC) in Tel Aviv looks like in action as it processes an order below:

The World's First 1-hour Delivery Fulfilled by Robots: Fabric, Formerly CommonSense Robotics

The funding, which vaults the company into what it describes as a ‘robocorn’ status, is not a surprise given the fast growth of the company and the broader micro-fulfillment market. Interact Analysis forecasts MFC automation and robotics market to grow from $136 million in 2020 to $5.3 billion in 2025. Revenue growth will be fueled by a rapidly growing number of MFC installations in various formats throughout the forecast; Interact expects the the total number of MFCs installed annual to grow from 29 in 2020 to over 2100 new MFCs installed in 2025.

The company plans to use the funds to grow its fulfillment solution in the general merchandise market and build a network of micro-fulfillment centers in cities across the United States. The company’s model relies heavily on building warehouse fulfillment centers that allow grocery retailers to outsource micro-fulfillment to Fabric. Fabric also co-invests and builds distributed fulfillment centers in partnership with larger players such as Instacart and FreshDirect.

That strategy makes Fabric part of a new kind of third-party logistics (3PL) player built around robotics and automation as an enabling platform for their distributed fulfillment networks. While large 3PL companies like XPO Logistics and C.H. Robinson been adopting automation in their warehouses for some time, companies like Fabric, Exotec and Attabotics are building hybrid networks of dark and retail/integrated grocery MFCs architected from the get-go with robotics in mind (rather than a bolt-on or forced integration). As more retailers invest in distribution networks tailored towards a grocery industry with 50%+ e-commerce penetration, next-gen MFC platform companies like these are well-situated to benefit.

“While we use the term ‘robocorn’ a bit tongue in cheek, we see this milestone as a real turning point in the industry, from what was once trepid exploration of micro-fulfillment to total market validation and now rapid expansion,’ said Fabric CEO Elram Goren in the release sent to The Spoon. “We’re thankful to our partners for trusting us to serve them and to our incredible team who will continue moving mountains to make our vision a reality. This is still ‘day one’ for us, and we’re extremely excited about the road ahead as we expand our offering into new markets, drive more efficiencies across the supply chain, and focus on scaling.”

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.

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.

Walmart Invests in Self-Driving Car Company, Cruise

Walmart announced today that it has invested an undisclosed sum in autonomous driving company Cruise. Walmart’s investment is part of a larger $2.75 billion round of funding being raised by Cruise.

The investment comes after five months of the two companies working together. In November, Walmart announced it would pilot the use of Cruise’s self-driving vehicles for grocery delivery in Scottsdale, Arizona.

As we reported back in November, its partnership with Cruise ticked off a couple of boxes for Walmart. First, the retailer has been adding automation throughout its logistics and fulfillment stack to keep up with the increase in grocery (and other) e-commerce. Walmart is using Gatik trucks for middle-mile deliveries, adding automated fulfillment centers to its stores, and robotic curbside pickup kiosks.

But the Cruise relationship also helps with Walmart’s environmental goals. Cruise’s self-driving cars are 100 percent electric, and Walmart has a goal of achieving zero emissions across all its operations by 2040 and using 100 percent renewable energy by 2035.

Commercial use of self-driving vehicles is certainly getting a big push this year. One of Walmart’s middle-mile delivery routes in Arkansas will go full driverless this year. And just this week Udelv announced an entirely new line of Transporter autonomous delivery vehicles, while Domino’s announced it would be using Nuro’s self-driving pod vehicles for pizza delivery in Texas.

Self-driving cars on public roads still have a ways to go before they become mainstream, as there is still plenty of regulation that needs to be ironed out. But getting a financial push from giants like Walmart will certainly go a long way to getting self-driving vehicles on the road and to our doors (with groceries).

If you’re interested in the future of self-driving vehicle delivery, be sure to attend ArticulATE, our food robotic summit on May 18. Gatik, Pix and other players in the space will speak!

Walmart Canada to Deploy First Automated Kiosks for Grocery Pickup

Walmart Canada is adding automated kiosk pickup to one of its stores in the Toronto area, which, the company says, will be the first of its kind in that country.

In a corporate blog post published yesterday, Walmart Canada outlined a number of moves the company is making to accelerate its e-commerce efforts, including:

  • Building out a 22,000 sq. ft. space inside the Scarborough West Supercentre that will automate online grocery picking and packing that is six times faster than manual order picking
  • Expanding grocery pickup to 60 more stores this year
  • Piloting “ring scanner” technology that allows workers to pick and scan items hands-free

But the new feature we are most interested in is the new automated grocery pickup. According to Walmart Canada’s blog post, these new automated kiosks will “serve as vending machines for online grocery orders and can serve up to five customers simultaneously.” To use the kiosk, customers pull into a dedicated parking spot, enter a code into the machine and their order will appear in under two minutes.

All of these new, automated features are being built in partnership with Dematic, and will launch later this year.

This isn’t the first automated kiosk we’ve written about. Albertsons debuted its own robot-powered kiosk for grocery pickup at a Jewel-Osco in Chicago. But to our knowledge, this is the first public mention of automated kiosk pickup from Walmart in North America.

In January, Walmart announced that it was partnering with Dematic, Fabric and Alert Innovation to deploy automated fulfillment centers to “dozens” of locations. Automated kiosks weren’t mentioned at that time, but it’s safe to assume that if Walmart Canada is testing them out, they will make their way to the U.S. at some point.

As we covered this week, a ton of resources are flowing into the online grocery sector. Smaller online grocery startups around the world are raising a lot of money, and big players like Walmart, Albertsons and Kroger are making big investments in their own e-commerce infrastructure.

The reason for this big push into grocery e-commerce is that online grocery sales hit $9.3 billion in January, and is projected to hit $250 billion and take up 21.5 percent of total grocery sales by 2025. Retailers are bolstering their e-commerce capabilities now, to accommodate the growth that is to come.

Walmart Ditches $35 Minimum for Express Delivery

Walmart announced today that it is dropping the $35 minimum order requirement for its Express delivery service. The move comes during a time of record-breaking online grocery shopping and increased competition among retailers to grab consumer dollars.

Walmart launched its two-hour Express delivery service last May, during the height of the first wave of the pandemic. The speedy delivery lets customers order groceries, staples, electronics and more, and costs an additional $10 on top of the existing delivery charge (Walmart+ subscribers pay just the $10 Express fee).

This is the second time Walmart has waived a $35 minimum order. In December, Walmart removed the $35 minimum for Walmart.com orders for its Walmart+ subscribers, though that didn’t apply to groceries until today.

We’re a year into the pandemic, and while there are vaccines being deployed, online grocery is expected to remain sticky with consumers. Brick Meets Click estimated that online grocery hit $9.3 billion in sales during the month of January, with nearly 70 million households placing an average of 2.8 orders across delivery, pickup and ship-to-home categories.

Walmart’s removal of the minimum order for Express delivery is most directly a shot at Amazon, which offers free two-hour delivery for its Prime members (there’s a $4.99 fee if the order is less than $35). The two companies are locked in a pretty heated battle to win your grocery business. Walmart has been going after Amazon in the digital realm with the Walmart+ membership service that it launched last September, and Amazon has been expanding into the physical world with its line of real world Fresh grocery stores.

Though Walmart has vastly more retail locations than Amazon, Walmart+ has far fewer subscribers. One estimate has Walmart+ at roughly 8 million subscribers, while Amazon has an estimated 126 million Prime members in the U.S. Though to be fair, Walmart+ is only five months old, compared with the more than 15 years Prime has been around.

Today’s minimum order waiving it just the latest move by Walmart to grab a bigger chunk of our grocery e-commerce . In January, the company announced that it was deploying automated fulfillment centers to dozens of its stores to speed up order processing. The retailer is also testing out smart lockers for home delivery, grocery delivery via autonomous cars, and even delivery by drone.

Walmart’s Express delivery is available at roughly 3,000 stores, which, the company says, reaches nearly 70 percent of the population.

Walmart in Canada Is Getting a Virtual Food Court Thanks to Ghost Kitchens

Ghost Kitchens, a Canadian company that operates, uh, ghost kitchens, this morning announced a new partnership to bring its concept to Walmart stores in Canada. The first location, in St. Catherines, Ontario, is open now. Additional locations are slated to open across Ontario and Quebec “in the coming months.”

Ghost Kitchens’ concept is part grocery store, part QSR, part mall food court in terms of what it offers. The company carries a variety of items from well-known QSRs and CPGs, among them Ben&Jerry’s, Saladworks The Cheesecake Factory’s Bakery chain, Cinnabon, Beyond Meat, and Jamba Juice. All items are prepped and fulfilled at Ghost Kitchens’ facilities.

Customers can bundle items from any of these brands into a single order, which can be placed either in-person or via a third-party delivery service. (Ghost Kitchens lists partnerships with Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Skip the Dishes on its website.) The company operates several of these facilities in Canada, with some standalone locations and some inside malls and big-box retailers like Walmart.

Speed appears to be the motivating force here. Ghost Kitchens’ food offerings are all simple, easy-to-fulfill items that don’t require Michelin-star chefs to create or special packaging to transport. “Our goal is to open a Ghost Kitchen every 12 kms across Canada, and be able to reach every Canadian, in every urban market within 30 minutes, 24/7,” said company President Marc Choy, President. That seems entirely possible when cheesecake, salad, and ice cream are the main staples on your menu.

It’s yet-another take on the ever-evolving concept of the ghost kitchen, which continues to evolve both as a format and with the types of food served. Nowadays, there seems to be a ghost kitchen for everything, from  burgers and cocktails to caviar and stoner food. 

Future Ghost Kitchens locations in Walmart stores are planned for 2021, including those in Woodstock, Lachenaie, Saint-Constant, and more in Toronto.

Gatik Debuts Electric Version of its Autonomous Middle-Mile Delivery Truck

Gatik, which focuses on self-driving vehicles for middle-mile delivery, today announced its electrification strategy and introduced its new Electric Autonomous Box Truck.

The first of Gatik’s electric trucks will be Ford Transit 350 HDs that were developed in partnership with electric drive company Via Motors. The new trucks have an all-electric powertrain, a range of 120 miles and can charge in less than 1.5 hours.

Gatik’s self-driving vehicles handle middle mile delivery, meaning that they transports goods closer to a consumer, but not all the way to them. A typical middle-mile route might be between a warehouse and a store location, and Gatik’s trucks become, in essence, a self-driving conveyor belt between points. Since the trucks travel a fixed route, Gatik can eliminate some of the variables that come with self-driving technology. They don’t, for example, need to constantly calculate new routes through a bunch of different neighborhoods to people’s front doors.

Gatik has previously said that this limited scope makes it easier to get regulatory approval and therefore its self-driving trucks on the road. Walmart announced in December that the Gatik trucks on one of its Bentonville, Arkansas routes will be allowed to remove the safety driver altogether and go full driverless this year.

In December, Walmart also announced that it would be adding Gatik’s truck to a second delivery route between New Orleans and Metairie, LA. That route is where the first of Gatik’s electric trucks will be in operation starting this month.

Electrification of its vehicle fleet is actually a stated goal of Walmart as the giant retailer aims to reach zero emissions by 2040. In addition to fewer emissions, with a recharge time of just 1.5 hours, Gatik’s new electric vehicles can recharge as they are being unloaded and loaded allowing for continuous operation.

The middle mile isn’t the only area where Walmart is testing out electric, self-driving delivery. The retailer has also partnered with electric car maker Cruise to test autonomous grocery delivery in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Last- and middle-mile delivery may also begin to blur in new ways, thanks in part to automation. Walmart has indicated that the middle mile may include consumer pickup stations, allowing people who don’t live near a Walmart store to purchase items from the retailer and pick them up closer to their homes.

Walmart Scaling its Automated Fulfillment with Alert Innovation, Dematic and Fabric

Walmart announced today that it is ramping up its use of automated centers to fulfill online grocery orders. The company said it is already planning “dozens” of locations with “many more to come.”

Automated fulfillment centers use robotics to assemble items for incoming orders. The result is a faster turnaround for customer delivery or pickup.

According to a corporate blog post announcing the news:

[Walmart will] be building local fulfillment centers with various technology partners, including Alert Innovation, Dematic and Fabric. With these partners, we’ll be testing different orientations and add-on innovations to understand what works best in different environments. For example, in some locations, we’ll be adding on to our stores. In others, the fulfillment centers will sit inside the existing store footprint.

At its Salem, New Hampshire location, Walmart had piloted Alert Innovation’s automated fulfillment technology back in 2019. Walmart didn’t explain why has chosen three different solutions going forward, though if the retailer is going all-in on automated fulfillment, one company may not have been able to scale up quickly enough. We do know that Fabric specializes in building automated fulfillment centers in small, non-traditional spaces, and Walmart said its rollout would test different automated fulfillment configurations.

After a slow burn for the past few years, automated fulfillment is becoming hot with grocers in 2021. FreshDirect is also using Fabric’s solution for a fulfillment center in the Washington D.C. area. Albertsons is expanding its use of Takeoff Technology’s micro-fulfillment. Dematic is being used in Amazon’s grocery stores. H-E-B is using Swisslog. And Kroger is set to open up the first of its planned 20 automated customer fulfillment centers this year.

The reason for this burst in robotic fulfillment activity is the pandemic. COVID-19-related fears pushed people into record amounts of online grocery shopping last year. While a vaccine is being deployed, people have developed new habits, and online grocery shopping is expected to take up 21.5 percent of total grocery sales by 2025.

As such, retailers need to increase their throughput now to retain customer loyalty. Faster turnaround means more slots available for curbside pickup and delivery. Walmart may not have found inventory counting robots on its floors particularly efficient, but it seems to believe robots in the backroom building out orders is.

Gatik’s Autonomous Middle-Mile Trucks to Go Full Driverless for Walmart

Self-driving delivery vehicles along the middle mile just got a little more autonomous. Walmart announced today that the Gatik self-driving delivery box trucks it uses on one Arkansas delivery route will remove the safety driver from the vehicle in 2021.

Gatik had quietly revealed plans for this driverless delivery last week. As Gatik explained then, one of the reasons it was able to go full driverless is because of the company’s focus on the middle mile. The middle mile is the business-to-business path when moving goods — between a warehouse and a store, for example. Because this route is clearly defined, fixed and repeatable, it decreases the number of variables a self-driving car will encounter. Gatik said this limited autonomous scope made it easier to gain regulatory approval necessary to for true humanless driving.

In addition to driverless deliveries in Arkansas, Walmart is expanding where and how it will use Gatik trucks. From the Walmart blog post:

We’ve tested multi-temperature Autonomous Box Trucks on a small scale in Bentonville and have learned how we might use autonomous vehicles to transfer customer orders from a dark store to a live store. Now, we’re expanding our pilot with Gatik to a second location to test an even longer delivery route and a second use case – delivering items from a Supercenter to a Walmart pickup point, a designated location where customers can conveniently pick up their orders. The Autonomous Box Trucks in Louisiana will initially operate with a safety driver.

The new route will be between New Orleans and Metairie, LA. But more interesting than the geography is the new use cases Walmart is outlining. By delivering to a pickup location, Walmart could provide a way for people who don’t live near a Walmart to shop at one. People in these more remote areas could order online and pick their items up closer to home. As Walmart describes, the use of autonomous trucks could essentially create a constant conveyor belt style loop of of deliveries from supercenters to pickup points throughout the day.

Autonomous delivery has been making some nice, errr, inroads this year. Back in February, Nuro got federal approval for its pod-like autonomous delivery vehicles to operate on public roads, and in April the company got approval to operate on California’s roads. In October the company announced that its vehicles had been running in three states with no drivers, no occupants and no chase cars.

In addition to its middle mile, Walmart is also testing out autonomous grocery delivery with cars from Cruise in Scottsdale Arizona.

Part of what’s spurring all this autonomous action is, of course, the COVID pandemic. Autonomous delivery helps reduce the amount of human-to-human contact when transferring goods, and as noted above, could be a means for operating a continuous supply chain so there are fewer product shortages.