Brazilian startup starts delivering food by drones

The Brazilian company has received permission to deliver food using drones. If the tests are successful, the drones will work in 200 cities of the country.

Brazilian startup iFood has received approval from the Brazilian National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) to begin experimental flights using unmanned aerial vehicles. They will deliver food.

IFood’s partner companies Speedbird Aero and AL Drones have been working on obtaining the permit for almost a year. The companies conducted test flights as part of a project with ANAC participation and received a certificate for experimental flights on August 5.

Experimental flights will be carried out according to two different scenarios and should begin before the end of 2020. Drones are designed to improve the efficiency of the logistics operation: the equipment will perform the first stage of the delivery route, and then the courier will deliver the goods.

The Brazilian authorities will decide to expand the operation based on the results of the initial research. In the case of successful testing, the startup has already identified about 200 cities across the country where the service could potentially be implemented.

One of the tests will take place in the city of Campinas, in the state of São Paulo. During the tests, the drones will operate a 400-meter route between the mall’s food court and the mall’s iFood center, where orders will be distributed to couriers. The startup expects the time it takes for couriers to pick up orders from restaurants to the food court will be reduced from 12 minutes to 2 minutes.

In addition, the company will also be testing drones in between the iFood order processing center in the mall and a nearby closed area. In this pilot, the delivery time is expected to be reduced from 10 minutes to 4 minutes.

Source: internetua.com