Early in the morning, when the mist still clings to the damp slopes and the roosters are just starting their scattered concert, a faint buzzing breaks the rural silence. From above emerges a drone that advances steadily over the tea terraces and descends with measured movements, barely raising dust, positioning itself on a platform at the community center of one of the villages perched on the hills of Tonglu, a mountainous county in eastern China.
The drone gently deposits a sealed thermal box. Just a second later, the aircraft rises again, moving away through the same aerial corridor it arrived from. On the platform, a group of elderly people, accompanied by local officials, open the box and start taking out trays with hot meals: each containing two plates of stewed meat and one of steamed vegetables.
The buzzing of the drones is now part of the morning routine in many villages in Tonglu, whose rugged topography has always presented logistical challenges when it comes to supplying the most isolated communities. Therefore, to ensure at least one daily delivery of hot meals for elderly people with limited resources living alone, since March, local authorities have been taking delivery drones for a walk.
In Hengcun, one of the most populated municipalities accessible by road, there is a large dining hall where the dishes are prepared early and then sent with drones to some villages within a radius of no more than 12 kilometers. This reduces the delivery time from 40 minutes (when trucks used to climb the narrow and muddy hill roads) to just about four minutes.
These drones, capable of carrying up to 40 kilograms each with a flight autonomy of over 20 minutes, are part of a social project launched by the courier company YTO Express to deliver meals to 168 elderly residents in five villages. "Many elderly people live alone, have very limited access to basic services, and receive a very low pension. This drone program, in addition to being a system to deliver hot meals, is a way for them to know that we have not forgotten about them," explains Hu Zhelin, one of the community workers coordinating this aid program.
This pilot project started in Tonglu because several leading logistics and courier companies in China, such as YTO Express and ZTO Express, originated from the county. The latter began four years ago to send packages with online orders to some remote villages in the area. The Tonglu initiative is just a starting point. It is expected that soon the drone delivery service will expand to many rural corners of the country, and in addition to food, medicines and other basic supplies will be delivered.
These food delivery drones have been regularly seen for a couple of years now in some neighborhoods of major cities like Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai. The Chinese giant Meituan, the world's largest application for home food delivery, has a license to operate over 50 drone delivery routes designed to work in rain and extreme temperatures. The devices are equipped with multiple navigation systems, sensors, and parachute protection.
Meituan has also taken its food delivery drones to one of the world's most famous historical sites: the Great Wall of China. In one of the busiest sections near Beijing, Badaling, tourists can order food through an app from the commercial area under the structure. A drone then delivers the order to specific landing pads located in the watchtowers.
"While a worker would take 50 minutes to walk from the starting point to the watchtower, the drones complete the journey in just five minutes," explained Mao Yinian, director of drone delivery services at Meituan. This flying service on the Great Wall operates daily from 10:00 to 16:00 and can carry packages weighing up to 2.3 kilograms. The extra cost for delivery is 4 yuan, which is approximately 0.48 cents.
These experiments are driving what is known as the "low-altitude economy", which encompasses the airspace below 1,000 meters. An emerging sector, a new growth engine (expected to reach 1.5 trillion yuan this year, around 200 billion euros), that China aims to dominate with its delivery drones and flying taxis.
Beijing has stated that they aspire to transform this airspace with new regulations and subsidies for technology companies that invest in projects like drones delivering food to elderly people living in remote villages.