Despite Finland's notoriously challenging weather, a groundbreaking drone food delivery service is now a reality in the Helsinki metropolitan area. This innovative three-way partnership, spearheaded by Finnish entrepreneur Ville Leppälä's startup Huuva, Irish drone delivery firm Manna, and DoorDash-owned food delivery platform Wolt, is transforming last-mile logistics for suburban customers. TechCrunch recently went behind the scenes to witness this aerial delivery system in action.

Huuva, whose name translates to "kitchen hood," secured a seed round led by General Catalyst in 2022 with a mission to deliver quality food to suburban areas. While evolving from its initial cloud kitchen model, Huuva's operations remain deeply integrated with advanced delivery technology, now prominently featuring drones.

Customers ordering from Huuva's Niittari location in Espoo, a key part of the Helsinki metropolitan area, are now greeted with a notification: "If available, we’ll send your order with a drone." Ville Leppälä highlights Espoo as an ideal testing ground for this concept. Although European suburbs like Espoo may not be as expansive as their U.S. counterparts, residents often face limited dining options compared to the capital. Huuva addresses this by offering popular dishes from partner restaurant brands, with drones ensuring significantly faster delivery times, according to Leppälä.

Leveraging Manna's extensive experience, which includes over 50,000 deliveries in Dublin, Finnish operations commenced swiftly upon securing necessary permits. Following a pilot phase initiated in February, the drones have been fully operational for the past two months in Espoo. They launch from a shared pad alongside Wolt Market, a delivery-only grocery store. This setup allows customers to order diverse food items from Huuva's partner brands and even add groceries, with each drone capable of carrying approximately 4.4 lbs (2 kg). Manna can deploy two drones simultaneously for larger or multiple orders.

Beyond convenience, drone delivery offers significant speed advantages. Unlike traditional drivers, drones are immune to traffic congestion, particularly during peak lunch hours. Leppälä emphasizes that this speed is crucial for ensuring food freshness upon arrival. Furthermore, the unit economics appear highly favorable for Huuva: while conventional deliveries cost an estimated €5-6 (approximately $6-8) per order, drone deliveries could potentially reduce this to just €1 (around $1.16). This calculation doesn't fully account for Manna's initial setup costs in Finland, though the company's prior experience minimized weather-related challenges.

Navigating Nordic Weather and Advanced Safety

Manna's drones, hailing from Ireland, were already rigorously tested against substantial wind and rain, conditions that also prepare them for snow. Icing, however, presents a unique challenge. Makar Nalimov, Manna's local operations and maintenance lead, explains that in such instances, alternative delivery methods are employed, especially since chemical de-icing is unsuitable for food deliveries.

These contingency plans underscore that Manna's drones are just one component of a rapidly evolving suite of last-mile delivery solutions. Wolt, for instance, already utilizes sidewalk robots from Coco and Starship in Finland. Its parent company, DoorDash, even developed its own autonomous robot, Dot, which began deliveries in Arizona earlier this year.

Streamlined Operations and Future Expansion

The current delivery process involves e-scooter workers transporting orders from Huuva's kitchen in insulated bags to Manna's nearby launchpad. Here, under the supervision of Makar Nalimov, operators weigh and balance the orders before placing them into specialized, regulator-approved bags. These resistant bags are part of Manna's comprehensive safety protocols, which also include systematic battery swaps to ensure full charge, multi-level redundancy, incident preparedness, and even a parachute as a last resort.

While Manna maintains ground staff in Finland, its Mission Control operates remotely from Ireland. Operators there analyze LiDAR maps, review flight itineraries, and pinpoint the drone's delivery radius near the customer. Should conditions be unsuitable, the order is rerouted to a traditional courier. If approved, the drone captures an image of the landing zone for final human confirmation before deploying the package via biodegradable rope.

This sophisticated process has become routine for Manna's local team, who are now handling double-digit deliveries daily and preparing for their first Finnish winter. For Huuva, the success in Espoo paves the way for doubling down on drone deliveries, with plans to expand to another Espoo location. This future site aims to integrate the launchpad even closer to the kitchen, potentially allowing direct handovers through a window, eliminating the need for intermediate e-scooter transfers.

This direct partnership model could prove highly beneficial for companies like Manna and Huuva, especially amid rumors that DoorDash is developing its own drone delivery program, in addition to existing collaborations with Alphabet-owned Wing. Huuva's ultimate ambition? To proudly display its logo on those regulator-sanctioned delivery bags.