Manna signs drone delivery partnership with Deliveroo

Irish company has plans to expand to other cities including Cork

Drone delivery service Manna has entered a partnership with Deliveroo.

Deliveroo has launched an autonomous drone food delivery service in Dublin in partnership with Irish firm Manna Drones.

As part of the partnership, Deliveroo customers in some areas of the suburbs of west Dublin will have the option to have their order delivered by drone, the company said Thursday. It will conduct a test phase in the coming weeks to assess how the drones can help serve suburban locations.

Food delivery companies have been investing in drone and robot delivery as part of efforts to reduce the use of gig economy workers and decrease delivery times. Manna in March signed a partnership with Just Eat Takeaway.com to deliver food in Dublin with plans to expand the service to other countries in Europe.

The company is also planning to expand its operations in Ireland to include Cork and other cities in the coming months. Initially, the Deliveroo service will cover a three-kilometre radius in Dublin 15 and drone delivery will be presented as an option on the app for customers. Delivery times are estimated to be as low as three minutes. The company aims to expand the service to include more restaurants and also launch grocery and retail deliveries in the next six months.

The drones will be deployed from Manna’s delivery hub in Blanchardstown, flying at speeds of up to 80 kms per hour.

“We’re excited to explore how drones can help us reach new customers, complementing our existing rider model and if successful, the prospect of expanding drone deliveries across Ireland and into other markets,” Carlo Mocci, Chief Business Officer at Deliveroo said in a statement.

Several companies globally have been investing to increase their drone-delivery capabilities. In the US, Amazon.com Inc has been developing its own drone capabilities. Developments have been hampered by technical challenges and crashes but the company now operates drone deliveries in Texas as well as the UK and Italy. US company Zipline International Inc delivers medicines by drone in a number of African countries.

Manna was founded in 2019 and has flown a total of 170,000 flights in Ireland. It also has bases in Finland and Texas and is aiming to be operating in the UK and more European Union countries by the end of the year.

The company is part of a UK consortium with Wing and Lancashire Fire and Rescue funded by the UK Civil Aviation Authority to examine how drone operators can safely share airspace.

Bloomberg