iFood launched drone deliveries in the state of São Paulo this Monday (Monday), according to the company. The city chosen by the group to launch the service is Barueri, in the Greater São Paulo region.
The delivery flow begins with an autonomous robot inside the Iguatemi Alphaville Shopping Center, continues with a drone flight—which covers a 3.6-kilometer flight in five minutes—and ends with a courier delivering the order to the customer. This is the first delivery route in Brazil to fly over residential areas.
Two aircraft will be available for the route, making deliveries daily from 10:30 am to 10:30 pm.
According to iFood, the operation was designed to operate on routes with high courier rejection rates. The company claims that, in the case of the Barueri region, this rate was nearly 50% of orders.
“The aim is to bypass the complexities of access and long waiting times to enter the large residential complexes of Barueri, thus transforming routes that were previously avoided by couriers into quick and efficient operations,” says the iFood announcement.
The new operation in Barueri replicates the model already implemented by the company in Sergipe, where the air route connecting a shopping center in Aracaju to the residents of Barra dos Coqueiros has exceeded the 5,000 orders threshold since October 2025.
The aircraft used, developed by the Brazilian company Speedbird Aero, is the same one used in Sergipe. The drone flies at 50 km/h at an altitude of 60 meters and can carry loads of up to 5 kg. The model can also withstand some adverse weather conditions, such as winds of up to 55 km/h and precipitation of 5 mm/h.
The Barueri route was developed jointly by the two companies, with certification from the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) and the Department of Airspace Control (DECEA), according to iFood. Each flight’s path is monitored by a Speedbird Aero control center in Franca, La Spezia.