Drones take to the Skye and deliver frozen foods to cloud kitchens

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Skye Air Mobility, a drone delivery service, on Monday announced that it has teamed up with Curefoods to use drones to deliver temperature-controlled boxes of frozen food to cloud kitchens.

According to Skye Air Mobility, the week-long Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) trials under the agreement started on July 25 from Curefoods' warehouse in Jhund Sarai, Gurugram to its culinary outlet at Golf Course Road in the city.

The testing involved up to six flights each day, each carrying a payload of 5 kg in temperature-controlled boxes that kept the frozen food fresh by maintaining a minus 20 degree temperature.

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Assuring the best flight safety and continuous temperature monitoring, Skye Air has been deploying its flagship unmanned aerial vehicle 'Skye Ship One' to allow real-time deliveries. The company claims that the drone covered a 20-kilometre airborne distance in less than 30 minutes.

Ankit Kumar, the CEO of Skye Air Mobility, said, "This collaboration is a first-of-its-kind initiative in the direction of utilising cutting-edge technology to deliver food. Curefoods has taken an innovative approach towards improving logistics and further serving the demand of consumers."

Skye Air expects to acquire additional information from the ongoing testing about the route, flight, cost and economic feasibility in order to create models for the start of commercial flights in the coming months, he added.

Drone delivery is likely to revolutionise the game in the food technology industry in the future due to the enormous technical improvements. Ankit Nagori, the founder of Curefoods, said drone delivery is being experimented with on a worldwide scale, and this partnership with Skye Air Mobility is a test to see if it is a practical method of food delivery.

"Starting with B2B pilot kitchen deliveries which ensure a larger quantity at a lesser cost, we will be looking at B2C food deliveries soon in the future," he added.

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