Flytrex has partnered with several establishments including Unilever’s The Ice Cream Shop, Papa Johns, Freddy’s Frozen Custard and Steakburgers, and Little Caesars, which will use its new fully autonomous delivery process, the company said Thursday in an email to Restaurant Dive. Flytrex currently only delivers within Granbury, Texas, and three cities in North Carolina, per its website.
The technology allows drones to pick up orders from restaurants using dropdown wires, and then fly to a customer’s home for dropoff, removing any human elements from the delivery process.
The aforementioned chains are working with the drone operator to implement autonomous delivery at their sites. Other partner retailers and restaurants will continue to use the drone operator’s manual process, in which a Flytrex employee picks up the food and brings it back to a drone station where the order would be put in a parked drone, which would then deliver the food.
“This upgrade is a huge step forward in achieving our vision to provide drone delivery to the millions of residents across suburban America,” Yariv Bash, CEO and co-founder of Flytrex, said in a statement.
Earlier this year, Flytrex, through its partner Causey Aviation Unmanned, received critical approval from the FAA for drones to fly beyond the line of sight opening up the possibility of eventually delivering to over 82 million U.S. properties.
While Flytrex is currently only delivering to four communities, it has seen rapid growth in its customer reach. In 2022, its reach grew from 40,000 customers to 95,000, an increase of 138%, the company said.
