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Burritos in the Sky: Chipotle Tests Drone Deliveries

10 September 2025

Only a month has passed since Alphabet received Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) nod to test drone delivery and the company's Project Wing hasn't wasted any time to initiate the experiment.

Project Wing has previously delivered dog treats, radios, and chocolates at an Australian cattle ranch.

Getting Alphabet drones to help drop burritos out of the sky is a nice little shot in the arm for Chipotle and its new minority owner Bill Ackman.

Google says it chose to test food delivery to learn how to package sensitive cargo for drone delivery.

When a burrito-carrying drone reaches its destination, it will lower down the bounty with a winch.

The question is, will guac still be extra if it's delivered by drone? The service will begin this month on the Virginia Tech campus and aims to test numerous bugs associated with drone delivery and isn't just another marketing ploy from Chipotle.

As for how this will work, exactly: Chipotle's burrito makers will prepare orders in a food truck at the test site before the grub is sent out via drone.

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That incident was blamed on a variety of structural issues that were exacerbated by an error made by the co-pilot. The other pilot, Pete Siebold, was seriously injured.

The effort is aimed at convincing the FAA that delivery drones can safely navigate the skies overhead and avoid running into each other - dropping your pizza or burrito or future Amazon order of hair gel onto unsuspecting heads below.

"Last year while discussing the entrepreneurial spirit at Virginia Tech, I jokingly speculated we might one day have quadcopters delivering ramen noodles around campus - apparently I wasn't off by much", Virginia Tech President Tim Sands said.

"Our goal is to maximize learning, and food delivery poses a rich set of operating challenges that few other testing scenarios have".

Due to the FAA guidelines, human pilots will be on hand to seize control if the flying robots go rogue.

As for now, the program is only available for Virginia Tech students and staffs.

In October of past year, Wal-Mart applied to USA regulators to test drones for home delivery, curbside pickup and for checking warehouse inventory.

Amazon Inc. announced in July of this year that it would test out a parcel delivery program in the United Kingdom.

Burritos in the Sky: Chipotle Tests Drone Deliveries