Business & Innovation
- April 23, 2019

From sky to sand: pushing the frontiers of food delivery

One of the great things about food ordering is that your meal is delivered to you, wherever you are. Whether you’re on your living room sofa, at work, or in the university library – it only takes a couple of clicks to find a world of delicious dishes within reach.

The way from a restaurant to a hungry customer is a well-worn path. From dispatching to food collection, riding the streets to drop-offs – we’ve tried and tested our delivery model to make sure every order reaches its destination in optimal condition.

But that’s only the beginning of food delivery’s potential. Delivery Hero brands worldwide have been breaking new ground and testing nextgen delivery methods – think voice ordering and robot deliveries – to keep expanding our service beyond anything we’ve seen before.

Our Central PR and Influencer Marketing team has gathered some of the most innovative delivery methods implemented by our brands across the globe. Discover the maverick ways in which we went above and beyond to make sure food reaches our hungry customers.

Why stick to the streets, when you can take on the skies?

drone delivery

There was an uplift in orders by customers who wanted to be one of the first to meet the drones.

foodpanda Bulgaria and Otlob Egypt took food delivery one step higher by bringing orders to customers via drone. Using the latest technology, orders were picked up in secure food bags and flown across the city, with teams coordinating the drone at the helm, to be landed directly with the customer.

Beating road and bike traffic in a seamless lift and drop, the campaign resulted in an uplift of orders by customers who wanted to be one of the first to meet the foodpanda and Otlob drones.

“The Egyptian audience was very excited to witness a drone delivering food,” said Amin Al Amin, content marketing manager at Otlob. “The campaign was inspired by our continuous search for introducing the newest and most updated ways of delivery that can make the best food delivery experience for our customers.”

Watch the drone deliveries in action here.

It’s raining… burgers?

During one of the most popular music festivals in Bogota, Estereopicnic, Domicilios Colombia wanted to ensure all their customers could keep dancing whilst never running out of food. Enter the Burger Cannon!

With a timer counting down to the next round, burgers were parachuted to hungry festival-goers during live music sets. On top of that, each burger came with a food voucher. In total, Domicilios distributed a whopping 1200 parachute burgers, 3400 choripanes and 1700 empanadas.

A 007 operation

Travelling from Bucharest to Brașov with an order for over 100 people? HipMenu did just that by teaming up with Condimental de Calif to complete a delivery quest even James Bond would be proud of.

HipMenu broke the barriers of usual delivery routes by flying their orders over 150 km in a helicopter to provide party guests with top quality food.

As a way of testing a new ‘group order’ feature, at 10am the HipMenu team accepted a group order with over 100 individual choices. At noon, the helicopter took off with the order from Bucharest and by 1pm everybody was enjoying their food!

Beach-side service

talabat beach delivery

Talabat used a green recharge station to create a beach location to order food to

Talabat and foodpanda Bulgaria wanted to ensure that a relaxing day at the beach wasn’t overshadowed by food cravings.

Foodpanda set out to surprise summertime beachgoers in Bulgaria’s two biggest seaside cities Varna and Burgas. With their own riders on foot, foodpanda Bulgaria handed favourite local dishes to sunshine worshipers in their exact chill-out spot, to the delight of many. See it in action here.

Talabat in turn partnered with Smart Palm Dubai, a green self-sustainable device recharge station and info point, to create a new location for beachgoers to order food at. As such, customers could enjoy a fresh meal while enjoying the Dubai beach, without ever having to step off the white sand.

While many of our current campaigns focus on raising awareness and connecting with customers, they pave the way for innovation and new delivery pathways. As the delivery landscape changes and customer’s expectations evolve, the world of food delivery will keep expanding.

What’s the one place you would like to get food delivered to? Let us know on our social channels!

Written by


Robin Nierynck

Senior Specialist, Global Communications Delivery Hero

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