Tesco To Trial Drone Delivery Service
Late to the party? UK’s biggest supermarket Tesco to trial drone deliveries for small basket-sized shops in southern Ireland
The UK’s largest supermarket Tesco has teamed up with drone firm Manna to trail drone deliveries in Ireland from next month.
The idea of the drone delivery trail is for “small basket” deliveries, a market that Tesco estimates will be worth £10bn in the years ahead.
The trail will be based at Tesco’s Oranmore store in County Galway in Eire, and the drones will deliver goods to the local area.
Small baskets
The aim is that the Tesco drone will dropped small items up to 4kgs off at customers’ homes within 30 minutes of ordering.
This on-demand idea is to help people who are missing key ingredients for a meal, or those who just wish for a small shop.
Drone firm Manna is already running medicine delivery trials in Ireland, the BBC reported.
The shopping will apparently be lowered from the drone in a cargo basket, similar to the Google Wing Drone operation in Australia.
Drone delivery
Earlier this month aviation regulator in the United States (the Federal Aviation Administration or FAA) granted Amazon an important certificate for its drone delivery ambitions.
Amazon has already tested drone deliveries in the United Kingdom – four years ago.
This occurred when Amazon began testing its unmanned delivery drone service in Cambridge in July 2016.
A package was delivered, by drone, in just 13 minutes.
