Craft cider company set to launch drone delivery service
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UK cider brand, Orchard Pig is keen to prove its flying ahead of competitors with an innovative new delivery service.
Drones are rapidly becoming part of distribution networks and Orchard Pig, a craft cider brand based near Glastonbury has announced it’s experimenting with its own unique version. Taking it a step further, this delivery service uses a flying Gloucester Old Spots pig to drop cider to UK customers.
Following on from huge US giants including Amazon, Google and Walmart, Orchard Pig has added a British twist to the R&D project by making pigs fly. The team wanted to express themselves in a humorous and playful manner so the team is experimenting with incorporating the Gloucester Old Spots pig into the drone build.
Andrew Quinlan, founder of Orchard Pig said “Orchard Pig has gone from strength to strength over the past three years and some people said it was impossible to make a hobby into a business. Well, we made the impossible, possible and now have used the delivery service to make pigs fly – because why not? By creating a delivery service we’re proud of we want to show them that Orchard Pig is capable of doing anything the big companies do, without taking it too seriously. “
Much like Amazon and Walmart, the huge issue in the R&D process has been getting the license you need to fly. Over the summer, during the first phase of testing, Orchard Pig’s R&D team struggled to carry out full testing of the service due to strict flying laws prevent testing going ahead in certain areas. Coupled with weight restrictions, this will be an on-going lengthy project.
Andrew continued: “We come up against the big breweries all the time and it’s a constant David and Goliath struggle – each week we’re faced with new challenges. However, drones have surprisingly been our businesses biggest challenge to date but we’ve overcome bigger ones, so we’re confident we’ll get there.”
Test flights have been few and far between because, unlike America where open spaces are easier to come by, commercial laws are holding delivery services in the UK back. The laws are not only preventing the technology from moving forward but small businesses that could benefit from agile solutions.
Orchard Pig is on a mission to prove that anything can be possible – including a pig drone delivery service. The delivery service did make a couple of test flights this summer and a 2016 summer cider delivery service shouldn’t be too far away.
