In Espoo, a suburban area near Helsinki, a partnership between a Finnish cloud-kitchen startup, a European food-delivery platform, and an Irish drone company has launched drone-based food delivery. Orders placed via the app from selected kitchens are now flown directly to customers’ homes whenever a drone is available. Each drone can carry up to about 4.4 pounds, and if needed two drones fly together to deliver larger orders.

Because drones bypass roads and traffic, food arrives faster and fresher — an advantage especially at lunch-hour when streets are congested. Delivery cost, which typically runs 5–6 euros with ground transport, could drop sharply — to as low as 1 euro per delivery under the drone model.

The operations began after regulatory clearance and a brief pilot phase earlier this year. Safety and reliability are central: for each flight, batteries are checked, payloads weighed and balanced, and flights overseen remotely by mission control abroad; local staff carry out final packaging and dispatch. In poor weather or icing conditions, the system simply reverts to traditional courier delivery to ensure safety.

This move in Finland exemplifies how last-mile logistics is evolving rapidly. With drones, companies are rethinking convenience, cost and speed — and the way we get food may very soon soar above traffic altogether.