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Thanks To Domino’s You Can Now Have Your Pizza Delivered Via Drone

By Tabitha Britt
Published on: 08:39 PST, Aug 26, 2016

As if technology hasn’t taken over enough areas of our lives, on Thursday, Domino’s revealed its ability to deliver pizza via drone in New Zealand.

“With the increased number of deliveries we make each year, we were faced with the challenge of ensuring our delivery times continue to decrease and that we strive to offer our customers new and progressive ways of ordering from us,” Domino’s Group chief executive and managing director Don Meij told the New Zealand Herald according to the Chicago Tribune.

“It doesn’t add up to deliver a two kilogram package in a two-ton vehicle,” said Scott Bush, a general manager for Domino’s Pizza Enterprises, which is independent of the U.S. chain and operates in seven countries. “In Auckland, we have such massive traffic congestion it just makes sense to take to the airways.”

Customers who request a drone delivery will receive a notification when their order is approaching. Once the delivery is near, the customer will then go outside and tap a button on their smartphone, which will prompt the drone to lower their pizza via a tether. After the customer gets their food, the drone will retract the tether and magically fly back to its home at the Domino’s store.

Bush told CNN Money that there may be an extra charge for drone delivery in the beginning, but says he hopes to offer customers this futuristic option at no added cost in the long term.

According to CNN Money, test deliveries will begin Sep. 26, out of one Auckland store. The drone flights, powered by American drone company Flirtey, will be automated, but a human will be nearby to supervise the delivery.

Just last year, New Zealand became one of the first countries to clear commercial drone deliveries.

“Our enabling laws and regulation means we have the ideal environment,” New Zealand Transport Minister Simon Bridges said after the first Domino’s test flight.

The Domino’s drones will have limits on the distance they can go. New Zealand’s drone laws currently prohibit a drone to fly farther than the device’s operator can see, but Domino’s said it’s working with authorities to bend the rules.

“We want to push it as hard as we can and roll it out globally throughout our seven markets,” Bush said.

Considering the Domino’s in New Zealand operates separately from the U.S. chain, U.S. customers dreaming of pizza landing in their front yard will have to wait a while. Drone delivery, however, could expand into Australia, Japan, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Germany.

The company says it plans to broaden its New Zealand drone delivery in early 2017, including late night deliveries.

This isn’t the first time Domino’s showed an interest in an alternative delivery service. This spring the company began using a robotic cart, cleverly named “DRU,” short for, “Domino’s Robotic Unit,” that wheeled along sidewalks in Australia to make deliveries.

“We improvised, we explored, and we discovered that this audacious idea could actually become a reality,” the company said in a DRU promo video.

The robot relied on GPS for navigation and could sense and avoid obstacles as it traveled. DRU was designed to travel along bike paths and footpaths, and could reach speeds up to 12 miles per hour.

DRU contained a hidden compartment that would pop up to reveal two hot and cold chambers that held the customers’ order. Customers could get their pizza by using a security code sent to their smartphone.

The base of the robotic pizza delivery machine was developed by Marathon Targets, a robotics startup that makes equipment for live fire training.

“We are proud to also be part of this world-first innovation in pizza-delivery technology,” Marathon said in a statement.

Marathon and Domino’s Australia are dubbing DRU “the world’s first autonomous pizza delivery vehicle,” but it’s just a prototype for now.

[Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]

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