Panera, Jet’s Pizza to launch drone delivery
Two quick-service restaurant chains will deploy the Zipline drone delivery service as the company hits an historic milestone.
Panera Bread and Jet’s Pizza will both soon begin fulfilling online delivery orders with Zipline drones in select markets. Meanwhile, Zipline, the world’s largest autonomous delivery system, is the first company in history to complete one million commercial drone deliveries to customers.
Zipline’s zero-emission autonomous drones have now flown more than 70 million commercial autonomous miles across four continents and delivered more than 10 million products.
Following are highlights from Panera Bread and Jet’s Pizza’s new partnerships that will see them use the Zipline Platform 2 (P2) system to deliver orders.
Panera Bread
Global franchise operator Flynn Group will use Zipline to deliver from select Panera Bread locations in the greater Seattle metro area. Panera customers will place orders for Zipline delivery directly through Zipline’s app and get their orders delivered by drone to their homes.
Panera launched national delivery with the DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats platforms, as well as its own app and website, in 2019, and added Postmates in 2020.
"We’re excited to take the guest experience we provide at our Panera Bread restaurants to new heights, literally, thanks to our partnership with Zipline," said Greg Flynn, founder, chairman and CEO of Flynn Group. "Delivery delays, especially in metro- areas like Seattle, are unpredictable; however, utilizing Zipline’s state-of-the-art drone technology, we’re addressing those challenges and significantly reducing the wait times from when orders are placed, to when guests can enjoy them."
Jet’s Pizza
Operating more than 400 locations across 22 states, Jet’s Pizza will begin using Zipline to deliver orders starting in its headquarters city of Detroit. Each Zipline P2 drone is capable of delivering two large Detroit-style pizzas along with sides.
Jet’s Pizza has been providing its own delivery service, offering high-tech options like AI-based text-to-order.
"Having the best pizza in the world doesn’t matter if it doesn’t arrive fresh from the oven. Zipline will let us expand our delivery area to bring great, hot food to even more of our loyal customers," said John Jetts, CEO of Jet’s Pizza. "With Zipline, customers will get a magical and consistent end-to-end Jet’s experience regardless of traffic or weather."
In addition, Memorial Hermann Health System, one of the largest not-for-profit health systems in Texas, will use Zipline to deliver specialty prescriptions and medical devices directly to patients’ homes, as well as to transport medicine, medical products, and lab samples between its facilities
"Over the past decade, we’ve worked hard to build a system that scaled to 1 million paid customer deliveries. In the near future, I believe that 1 million deliveries will be unremarkable as we reach a million deliveries in a year, in a month, in a day," said Ryan Oksenhorn, co-founder of Zipline and head of Software. "Ten years from now, I think clean, reliable autonomous delivery of goods and services will be available to everyone."