The climate of Finland is extremely unfavorable; But still, your food order can be delivered by drone.
A rainy day after Helsinki’s anniversary festival mud conferenceFinnish entrepreneur Ville Leppälä takes TechCrunch behind the scenes of a three-party partnership between Irish drone delivery company Manna, DoorDash-owned food delivery platform Volt, and his own startup. hoooooow,
Huwa, whose name means kitchen hood, raised a seed round led by General Catalyst in 2022 with the promise of bringing good food to the suburbs. While it’s branching out from that Origin of Cloud KitchenIts business still relies heavily on delivery technology – which now includes drones.
“If available, we will ship your order by drone.” Volt is likewise informing customers ordering from Huva’s Nittaari location in Espoo, which is part of the Helsinki metropolitan area, but which Leppälä considers particularly suitable for this concept.
Although European suburbs are not as expansive as those in the United States, people who work, study, and live in places like Espoo still lack the variety of options found in the capital. Huova lets them order popular items from partner restaurant brands — and drones help those orders arrive faster, Leppala said.
Building on Manna’s track record of completion Over 50,000 deliveries In Dublin, operations in Finland began rapidly as soon as the appropriate permits were obtained. After a pilot phase since February, the drones have been fully operational for the past two months in Espoo, where they depart from a launchpad that is shared only with delivery grocery store Vault Market.
For end users, this means they can order different food styles from Huwa’s partner brands, and even add some groceries — each drone can carry about 4.4 pounds, and Manna can send two of them at once.
This adds another layer of convenience, but also adds speed. Unlike drivers, drones won’t be stuck in lunch-time traffic. According to Leppala, the key is to ensure that the food arrives fresh; And it doesn’t hurt if the unit economics are more sustainable for Huawei too.
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Huwa’s team estimates that regular deliveries currently cost €5-6 each (about $6-8), while drone deliveries could be as low as €1 ($1.16). This does not account for the additional costs that Manna might incur in setting up his Finnish operations, although the season was not as challenging as it might have been for a newcomer.
Hailing from Ireland, Manna’s drones were already thoroughly tested for wind and rain, in such quantities that even snow falls under the same umbrella. Icing presents an additional challenge, but according to Makar Nalimov, head of local operations and maintenance, in those cases they will only use other delivery methods, especially when food is involved so using chemicals for de-icing is also out of the question.
These fallback options highlight that Manna’s drones are part of a rapidly growing range of last-mile delivery solutions. Walt himself is already using sidewalk robots cocoa And starship in Finland, and its parent company DoorDash also created its own Dot, which began delivery in Arizona earlier this year.
Amid rumors that DoorDash may Creating your own drone delivery programIn addition to collaborating with Alphabet’s ownership wing, a direct partnership could be beneficial for companies like Manna and Huawei. The food startup is considering expansion to another Espoo location where Vault Market will be out of the equation, making it possible for Launchpad to be close enough to the kitchen for delivery through the window.
In the current process, Manna’s launchpad is located a short distance away; Delivery workers on e-scooters pick up orders from the kitchen in heat bags, then deliver them to Manna’s operators. Under the supervision of maintenance chief Nalimov, they place orders on a scale and balance the weight if necessary before placing them in special bags approved by regulators.
The resistant bag is one of the many security measures that Manna follows to ensure compliance with regulations and its processes. For example, batteries are systematically replaced so that the drone always flies with a full charge. According to Nalimov, there are redundancies at all levels, as well as preparation for various incident scenarios – and a parachute as a last resort.
Although Manna has employees on the ground, mission control sits in Ireland. There, operators assess LiDAR maps, review the planned flight schedule and drop a pin to deliver the drone to a small radius of the customer’s location. If the conditions are not met, the order goes back to the courier. If approved, the drone captures an image of the landing location for final human confirmation before lowering the package with a biodegradable rope.
This process has now become routine for Manna’s local staff, who are becoming busier. According to Nalimov, he and his team are now handling double-digit deliveries a day, and are confidently preparing for their first operational winter in Finland. As for Heeva, it’s now ready to double down on drone deliveries in Espoo, with one additional wish: being allowed to put its logo on those regulator-approved bags.
