Drone Food Delivery in China: A New Way to Get Your Meal
In China, drones are now delivering food to customers in cities and even remote areas like the Great Wall. Companies like Meituan and EHang are using these small flying machines to bring meals quickly and efficiently. This service is changing how people get their food, making it faster and easier in busy places. Here’s a look at how it works, where it’s happening, and what challenges remain.
How It Started
A few years ago, delivering food in China’s crowded cities was slow because of traffic and the high number of orders. In 2021, Meituan, a major food delivery company, started using drones in Shenzhen to solve this problem. By 2025, they had set up about 30 drone routes in the city, handling thousands of deliveries. During the Spring Festival in January 2025, drones delivered over 400,000 orders in cities like Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The service also reached Hong Kong, where drones now carry food across a 1.8-kilometer sea route in just five minutes.
EHang, a company that makes drones, teamed up with a store called Yonghui Super Species in Guangzhou. They opened a shop in May 2025 where customers can order fresh items like fish or shrimp, and drones deliver them to nearby neighbourhoods. The system worked well, with hundreds of successful deliveries in the first month.
How It Works
The process is simple. Customers use an app to order food, usually small meals or drinks weighing less than 2.5 kilograms. The order goes to a nearby drone station, often on a building’s roof. A worker picks up the food from a restaurant, puts it in a special box to keep it warm or cold, and loads it onto a drone. The drone uses GPS to fly to a drop-off point, like a park or an apartment complex, where customers pick up their order using a code. Most deliveries take less than 30 minutes.
For example, in Shenzhen’s Talent Park, people can order from different restaurants, and a drone brings their food to a shared pickup spot. In April 2025, China approved drones to fly longer distances without a pilot watching, so the service can now reach more places, including rural areas.
Delivering to the Great Wall
Drones aren’t just for cities. In 2024, Meituan started delivering food to tourists at the Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing. Visitors can order sandwiches or drinks, and drones bring them to specific spots on the wall in about five minutes. This costs only 4 yuan (about 50 cents) and doesn’t disturb the historic site. People have shared videos online of getting their meals while hiking, amazed at how quick and easy it is.
Challenges to Solve
Drone delivery isn’t perfect yet. In cities, managing many drones in the air is tricky to avoid crashes. Bad weather can stop flights, and the drones can only carry small orders, so larger meals still need delivery by bike or car. Some areas don’t have pickup stations, especially outside cities. Also, the boxes used for delivery create waste, though companies are starting to use materials that break down naturally.