Finland’s weather is notoriously inclement; But still, your food order may be delivered by a drone.
On a rainy day after Helsinki’s annual Slush conferenceFinnish entrepreneur Ville Leppälä took TechCrunch behind the scenes of a three-party partnership between Irish drone delivery company MannaDoorDash-owned food delivery platform Woltand his own startup, Huuuva.
Huuva, whose name means kitchen hood, launched a seed round led by General Catalyst in 2022 with the promise of bringing good food to the suburbs. As it branched out of his Origins of cloud kitchenhis business still relies heavily on delivery technology — now including drones.
“If available, we will ship your order using a drone.” In this way, Wolt has notified customers who order from Huuva’s Niittari location in Espoo, which is part of the greater Helsinki area but which Leppälä sees as particularly suitable for this concept.
While European suburbs are not as sprawling as those in the United States, people who work, study and live in places like Espoo still lack the variety of opportunities they can find in the capital. With Huuva, they can order popular items from partner restaurant brands — and drones ensure those orders arrive faster, Leppälä said.
Building on Manna’s track record of completion more than 50,000 deliveries In Dublin, operations in Finland began quickly after obtaining the appropriate permits. After a pilot phase starting in February, the drones have been fully operational for two months in Espoo, where they launch from a launch pad shared with delivery-only grocery store Wolt Market.
For end users, this means they can order different styles of food from Huuva’s partner brands and also add some food items – each drone can carry around 2.2kg, and Manna can ship two of them at the same time.
This increases comfort but also speed. Unlike drivers, drones don’t get stuck in traffic at lunchtime. Leppälä says this is key to ensuring food arrives fresh. And it doesn’t hurt if the unit economy is more sustainable for Huuva too.
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Huuva’s team estimates that regular deliveries currently cost 5 to 6 euros (about $6 to 8 US dollars) each, while drone deliveries could drop to 1 euros (1.16 US dollars). This does not take into account the additional costs that Manna might incur in setting up its Finnish branches, although the weather was not as challenging as it could have been for a newcomer.
Manna’s drones, which come from Ireland, have already been thoroughly tested against wind and rain, in such quantities that snow also falls under the same umbrella. Although icing poses an additional challenge, according to local operations and maintenance manager Makar Nalimov, in such cases they will simply resort to other delivery methods, especially since the use of chemicals for de-icing is also out of the question for food.
These fallback options illustrate that Manna’s drones are part of a rapidly growing range of last-mile delivery solutions. Wolt itself already uses street robots Coco And spaceship in Finland, and its parent company DoorDash even built its own, Pointwhich began shipping in Arizona earlier this year.
Amid rumors that DoorDash could be Building your own drone delivery programin addition to Collaboration with Wing, which belongs to AlphabetDirect partnerships could be beneficial for companies like Manna and Huuva. The food startup is considering expanding to another location in Espoo, where Wolt Market would not be an option, which would allow the launch pad to be close enough to the kitchen so deliveries could be made through a window.
In the current process, Manna’s launch pad is in close proximity; Delivery workers pick up the orders from the kitchen on e-scooters in a heat bag and then carry them to Manna’s employees. Under the supervision of maintenance manager Nalimov, they place the orders on a scale and, if necessary, balance the weight before placing them in special bags approved by regulators.
Durable bags are just one of many safety measures Manna follows to comply with regulations and its own procedures. For example, batteries are systematically replaced so that drones always fly with a full charge. According to Nalimov, there is also redundancy at all levels, as well as preparation for different incident scenarios – and a parachute as a last resort.
Although Manna has employees locally, Mission Control is based in Ireland. There, operators evaluate the LiDAR maps, check the planned flight route and leave a note so that the drone can deliver within a short radius of the customer’s location. If the conditions are not met, the order will be returned to a courier. If approved, the drone will capture an image of the landing site for final human confirmation before lowering the package using a biodegradable rope.
This process has now become routine for Manna’s local staff, who are increasingly busy. According to Nalimov, he and his team are now handling double-digit deliveries per day and are confidently preparing for the first operational winter in Finland. As for Huuva, it is now ready to double drone deliveries in Espoo, with an additional request: permission to display its logo on these bags approved by the regulator.
