Food by drones?

无人机送餐?

The Food Chain

2025-11-13

31 分钟
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From pizza delivery to emergency aid, are autonomous aircraft the future? Ruth Alexander looks into whether drones are a feasible alternative to delivery drivers and traditional air drops. We hear how fast food and groceries are being delivered into suburban back gardens in Helsinki and Dublin and to a waterside collection point in Hong Kong. Is this technology something we might see everywhere soon? Ruth looks at its advantages and limitations and finds out how drones are carrying essential food to remote communities in Madagascar. Taking part were Danny Vincent, BBC Hong Kong reporter, Ville Lepalä, the CEO and co-founder of Huuva foodhall, Bobby Healy, the CEO of Manna Aero, Santanu Chakraborty, chief executive officer of Bal Raksha Bharat – Save the Children India and Hedley Tah from the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service, which is run by the World Food programme. Produced by Rumella Dasgupta. Image: A drone is flying against a stylised blue sky background. It is holding a white box which says Food Delivery on it in black letters. (Credit Getty Images/ sarawuth702)
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  • It's a pretty magical moment when you really think that the future is here.

  • Food falling from the sky.

  • Once a fantasy,

  • it's now a reality in some parts of the world where drones are dropping off hot meals and sweet treats.

  • It's a lot of fun, particularly for kids,

  • to see the drone flying over your house with flashing lights and delivering a product.

  • So some tourists are now looking at the box and my meal.

  • Thousands of kilometres away that same technology is providing aid in places previously impossible to reach.

  • The idea of seeing food dropping from the sky was just unbelievable for some of them.

  • This is the food chain from the BBC World Service with me Ruth Alexander and in this episode we're exploring the potential for drones to change the future of food delivery and even save lives.

  • One of China's leading food delivery companies has set up a small-scale drone service and my colleague Danny Vincent has been trying it out.

  • So I'm about to try to download an app.

  • It's called Keter Drone and I'm gonna buy a mill on this.

  • It's gonna be delivered by drone flying across Hong Kong and then I'm gonna pick it up.

  • The first step is to actually try to download the app.

  • Right, so...

  • There's different icons for different types of food.

  • You've got burgers and noodles, bubble tea, which has become very, very popular here.

  • I'm going to search for drone delivery.

  • It's got the fee and it's got a minimum order price.