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Many Canberrans will soon be able to get their groceries delivered by a drone to their doorstep as part of a partnership between supermarket giant Coles (ASX: COL) and Google’s Wing.
The partnership is a first for the supermarket space, and follows successful trials of Wing’s drone delivery technology which has been servicing food retailers like Roll’d in the Australian capital.
Coles will offer on-demand drone delivery for more than 250 popular grocery items, including bread, fresh produce, snacks, convenience meals, health care items, kitchen essentials and toilet paper.
Like how Wing delivers KFC, Boost and Chatime in Logan, Queensland, Wing’s Canberran operations see a small drone carry a customer’s order through the sky, before slowly lowering it to the ground at the delivery location.
The drone delivery pilot with Coles will be available in the ACT suburbs of Crace, Palmerston, Franklin, Harrison, Mitchell, Giralang and Kaleen, with deliveries expected to take 10 minutes or less.
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Coles chief executive (eCommerce) Ben Hassing said drone delivery was the next evolution in delivery technology and will support the supermarket chain’s ambition to be more sustainable.
“We are passionate about finding innovative ways to help our customers to shop with us and we aim to deliver anytime, anywhere, anyhow shopping,” Hassing said.
“By partnering with Wing, we’re able to offer our online customers another convenient option to purchase the Coles items they know and love and get them delivered straight to their door.”
Wing general manager Australia Simon Rossi said the company was delighted to partner with Coles, with the partnership to build on the more than 30,000 deliveries already made by the Google subsidiary this year so far.
“Whether you’ve run out of milk and eggs for breakfast, forgotten to pick up a loaf of bread for school lunches, or are just after a fresh ‘grab and go’ snack, customers in our delivery service area in Canberra can now get those urgent items they need in a hurry, delivered by drone.
“In the last year we’ve seen a significant increase in use of our on-demand drone delivery service, with many customers finding the service especially useful as they stayed home, and relied on our contactless delivery service to deliver the items they needed.”
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