Kroger Conducts Pilot Program For Drone Grocery Deliveries

Kroger Co. KR has teamed with Drone Express, a division of Telegrid Technologies Inc., on a pilot program to offer groceries delivery by autonomous drones.

Look, Up In The Sky! The pilot program will be conducted this week near the Kroger Marketplace in Centerville, Ohio, with Drone Express pilots operating their flying grocery delivery vehicles from both an on-site trailer and an off-site center. If all goes well, drone deliveries from that supermarket will commence later this spring.

A second pilot program is scheduled this summer in California with a grocery store belonging to Kroger’s subsidiary, Ralphs.

Although the drone deliveries come with a five-pound weight limit, Kroger insisted its flying deliveries represent the future of customer service.

"The launch of the pilot in Centerville is the culmination of months of meticulous research and development by Kroger and Drone Express to better serve and meet the needs of our customers," said Ethan Grob, Kroger's director of last-mile strategy and product. "We look forward to progressing from test flights to customer deliveries this spring, introducing one more way for our customers to experience Kroger."

See Also: Benzinga Office Vlog #2: Redemption At Last?!?

Up, Up And Away! Talk about the potential of drone deliveries of merchandise has floated for years, but few companies have made drone deliveries part of their everyday distribution efforts.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has given approval to three companies — Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, Alphabet’s GOOGL/GOOG Google and United Parcel Service, Inc. UPS — for commercial drone deliveries, but to date, none of the companies have incorporated this distribution method into a nationwide offering.

Recently, drone deliveries have been used for off-beat promotions: PepsiCo, Inc. PEP delivered Super Bowl-related merchandise to select residents in the Tampa area in conjunction with the football championship in February, while a Girl Scouts troop in Christiansburg, Virginia, flew in their cookies to local customers last week.

Drone deliveries have taken on life-and-death importance in Africa, where the Australian delivery logistics company Swoop Aero has collaborated with the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Mozambique to transport COVID-19 vaccines and other medications to remote communities not easily accessible by motor vehicles.

(Photo courtesy of Kroger.)