How Finland Delivers Food by Drone

Despite Finland’s famously harsh climate, a new initiative is using drones to bring restaurant meals directly to customers’ doors. This innovative approach to food delivery is emerging from a collaboration between three companies: the Irish drone specialist Manna, the food delivery platform Wolt, and the Finnish startup Huuva.

Following Helsinki’s annual Slush conference, entrepreneur Ville Leppälä provided a look into this three-way partnership. His company, Huuva, secured seed funding led by General Catalyst in 2022 with a mission to expand quality food access in suburban areas. While Huuva has evolved from its initial cloud kitchen model, its operations remain deeply reliant on advanced delivery technology, which now prominently features drones.

Customers in the Niittari district of Espoo, part of the greater Helsinki region, are now receiving notifications from Wolt stating, “If available, we’ll send your order with a drone.” Leppälä points out that Espoo’s layout is especially well-suited for this kind of service. Although European suburbs are generally less spread out than their American counterparts, residents in areas like Espoo often have fewer dining choices compared to the city center. Huuva addresses this by offering popular dishes from its partner restaurant brands, with drones ensuring these meals arrive more quickly.

Leveraging Manna’s extensive experience from completing over 50,000 deliveries in Dublin, the Finnish operations launched swiftly after receiving the necessary permits. After a pilot program that began in February, the drone service has been fully active in Espoo for the past two months. The drones take off from a shared launchpad that also serves the delivery-only Wolt Market grocery store.

For the customer, this system allows them to order a variety of cuisines from Huuva’s partner brands and even include grocery items in the same delivery. Each drone can carry a payload of roughly 4.4 pounds, and Manna has the capability to dispatch two drones simultaneously for a single order.

This method introduces a new level of convenience and, critically, speed. Drones bypass the typical lunchtime traffic jams that delay traditional drivers. Leppälä emphasizes that this speed is crucial for guaranteeing food arrives fresh and hot. An added benefit is that the unit economics are also more sustainable for Huuva’s business model.

The financial upside is significant. Huuva’s team calculates that standard deliveries currently run between €5 and €6 per order, whereas drone deliveries have the potential to reduce that cost to approximately €1. This estimate does not include the initial setup expenses Manna faced when establishing its Finnish branch, though the challenging weather proved less of an obstacle than a newcomer might fear.

Having originated in Ireland, Manna’s drone fleet was already rigorously tested to handle significant wind and rain, conditions that are comparable to dealing with snowfall. Icing does present an additional complication, but according to Makar Nalimov, the local operations and maintenance lead, on such occasions the company simply reverts to other delivery methods. The use of chemical de-icers is not an option when transporting food.

These alternative delivery options underscore that Manna’s drones are just one component in a rapidly growing ecosystem of last-mile solutions. Wolt is already utilizing sidewalk robots from Coco and Starship in Finland, and its parent company, DoorDash, has developed its own robot, named Dot, which started making deliveries in Arizona this year.

Amid industry speculation that DoorDash might be developing its own drone delivery system alongside its collaboration with Alphabet’s Wing, direct partnerships remain advantageous for companies like Manna and Huuva. The food startup is now contemplating an expansion to another location within Espoo. This new site would not include a Wolt Market, potentially allowing the drone launchpad to be situated directly next to the kitchen, enabling orders to be passed directly through a window.

In the current setup, the launchpad is located a short distance away. Delivery personnel on e-scooters collect the orders from the kitchen in insulated heat bags and transport them to Manna’s operators. Under Nalimov’s oversight, the team weighs each order, makes necessary balance adjustments, and then secures them in special bags that have received regulatory approval.

These durable bags represent just one of many safety protocols Manna follows to adhere to strict regulations and its own internal procedures. For example, batteries are systematically rotated to ensure every drone departs with a full charge. Nalimov notes that the system incorporates redundancy at multiple levels, with prepared responses for various incident scenarios. A parachute is available as a final safety measure.

While Manna employs a local ground team, its Mission Control center is based in Ireland. From there, operators examine LiDAR maps, review the pre-planned flight path, and designate a specific drop-off point within a short radius of the customer’s location. If conditions are not met for a safe drone delivery, the order is automatically reassigned to a traditional courier. Once approved, the drone captures an image of the intended landing spot for a final confirmation by a human operator before lowering the package on a biodegradable rope.

This entire procedure has become standard for Manna’s local staff, who are seeing a steady increase in demand. Nalimov reports that his team is now managing dozens of deliveries each day and is confidently preparing for their first full winter of operations in Finland. As for Huuva, the company is poised to expand its reliance on drone deliveries in Espoo, with one additional goal: obtaining permission to place its logo on those officially approved delivery bags.

(Source: TechCrunch)