The company says drones can cut delivery times from nearly an hour to just five minutes in hard-to-reach residential areas
Brazilian food delivery platform iFood has launched a commercial drone delivery operation in Barueri, a city in the Greater São Paulo metropolitan area, marking what the company claims is the first drone delivery service in Brazil authorized to fly over densely populated residential zones.
The service, which went live on Sunday, connects restaurants at the Iguatemi Alphaville shopping mall to gated residential communities in the region — an area that has long posed challenges for conventional delivery drivers.
A Problem of Gates and Waiting Rooms
The business case for drones in Barueri is surprisingly straightforward: getting past the front desk. According to iFood, nearly half of all delivery orders destined for certain residential condominiums in the area were being rejected by couriers, frustrated by lengthy identification checks and security queues at building entrances.
“The drone expands route possibilities and improves operational productivity, especially in areas with complex access,” said Mariana Werneck, iFood’s Senior Director of Logistics.
How It Works
The operation relies on a multimodal chain. Orders are first collected from restaurants inside the shopping mall — either by a human courier or by ADA, iFood’s autonomous delivery robot. The package is then handed off to a drone, which covers a 3.6-kilometer aerial route in roughly five minutes, landing at a dedicated droneport installed inside the residential complex. From there, a partner delivery worker handles the final leg to the customer’s door.
The service runs daily from 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., and iFood says customers are not charged any additional fee for drone delivery.
The Aircraft
The drone was developed by Speedbird Aero, a Brazilian aerospace company that has partnered with iFood since 2019. The aircraft can carry payloads of up to 5 kg, flies at speeds of up to 50 km/h at altitudes of up to 60 meters, and is capable of operating in light rain. It is equipped with GPS, an emergency parachute, and remote monitoring systems, and is tracked in real time from an operations center in Franca, in São Paulo state.
The operation holds authorizations from both ANAC, Brazil’s civil aviation authority, and DECEA, which oversees Brazilian airspace.
Years in the Making
iFood’s drone ambitions stretch back to 2019, but regulatory hurdles kept large-scale urban deployment out of reach. A regulatory change in 2025 finally permitted permanent drone operations over areas with public foot traffic, opening the door to denser urban routes.
Prior to Barueri, the company had been running a drone route between Aracaju and Barra dos Coqueiros in the northeastern state of Sergipe, completing over 5,000 orders on that corridor.
The Barueri launch positions drone delivery as a permanent pillar of iFood’s logistics strategy, sitting alongside human couriers and robotic ground vehicles — a sign that the company is betting on a hybrid future for last-mile delivery in Brazil’s complex urban landscape.
Source: Olhar Digital
