Finland Drone Food Delivery: Behind the Scenes

Finland is famous for its brutal weather. Even so, your lunch might soon drop from the sky. After the Slush tech event in Helsinki, Finnish founder Ville Leppälä showed how drones are now part of a three company partnership between Manna, Wolt, and Huuva, as reported yesterday by TechCrunch.

Huuva began as a cloud kitchen. Its name comes from the kitchen hood. The company raised money in 2022 to bring better food to suburbs and smaller communities and that mission still guides the business. Drones are becoming a key part of this new delivery system for Finland.

Wolt alerts customers with a simple message. If a drone is available, your order goes by air. This option appears for users ordering from Huuva’s Niittari site in Espoo. The area is close to Helsinki but does not have the same variety of restaurants. That is why Leppälä believes it is a perfect testing ground for fast drone delivery for Finland.

Manna had already completed more than fifty thousand flights in Ireland and we have wrote a lot about them. So once Finnish permits were in place, operations in Espoo started fast. Manna now runs drones from a shared launchpad next to Wolt Market. Customers can order meals from Huuva and add groceries from Wolt in the same flight. Each drone lifts about four and a half pounds. Manna can also send two drones at the same time.

Why Drones Matter for Speed and Cost

Drones remove the worst part of traditional delivery. Traffic. Finland winter. Bad weather. Slowdowns during lunch hours. None of that applies when the meal flies above the roads. This means food arrives warm and on time.

It also helps the business side of Huuva. Regular deliveries cost five to six euros each. Drone flights could drop to one euro per trip. Manna still carries the cost of its new base in Finland, but the long term goal is clear: fast flights + low cost = more orders.

The weather is less of a problem than some might expect. Manna comes from Ireland, where rain and strong wind are part of daily life. Snow behaves in similar ways, so Finland is not a dramatic leap. Ice is the real threat. Since de icing chemicals cannot touch food bags, Manna switches to other methods during icy conditions.

Manna’s drones are one part of a growing last mile toolkit. Wolt already uses sidewalk robots from Coco and Starship. DoorDash has its own robot named Dot, active in Arizona. Rumors suggest DoorDash wants its own drone program too. For now, partnerships with specialized companies help both sides.

Huuva is even looking at a second Espoo site. This one could place the launchpad close enough for cooks to hand orders directly through a window. Today, e-scooter couriers move the meals from the kitchen to Manna’s operators. There, maintenance lead Makar Nalimov checks weight balance and loads the food into approved insulated bags.

Inside the Flight Process and Winter Challenge

Safety rules shape every flight. Batteries get swapped after each mission. All drones leave with a full charge. Manna builds redundancy into each part of the aircraft. Operators prepare for every kind of incident. The final backup is a parachute.

Mission Control stays in Ireland. Operators there check lidar maps and review the flight path. They choose a delivery point near the customer and If the site is safe, the drone takes a photo of the landing area. Only after a human confirms it, then does the drone lower the bag using biodegradable rope.

If something looks wrong, the order returns to a normal courier. But most flights now run smoothly. The Finland team handles double digit deliveries each day. They are preparing for their first full winter season. Huuva plans to expand drone use as fast as regulators allow it. The company even hopes to add its logo to the official food bags.

DroneXL’s Take

Finland is giving the world a real test case for daily drone deliveries. Harsh weather. Busy suburbs. Real customers ordering real meals. Manna’s long experience in Ireland gives the system a strong head start. They hope costs could drop fast, and speed is already better than ground couriers. If the program survives a full Finnish winter, this could become a model for drone food delivery in many other countries.

Photo credit: TechCrunch