Photo: PR Times
food

Flying beef bowls? Yoshinoya completes drone delivery of its signature gyudon

6 Comments
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24

The phrase “when pigs fly” refers to some sort of theoretically possible, but realistically unfeasible, future situation. But while pigs remain rooted to terra firma, this week beef bowls flew in Japan.

On Thursday, Yoshinoya completed a drone delivery of its flagship dish, the gyudon/beef bowl. The airlifted lunches flew through the skies of the city of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture.

▼ Video of the delivery

The drone’s 5.2-kilometer course took it over Yokosuka’s adjacent bay and an empty high school athletic field, carrying its cargo from a mobile-kitchen Yoshinoya food truck to the roof of Yokosuka City Hospital. While Yokosuka is a fairly developed city, the hospital is in a part of town with few nearby restaurants, and its cafeteria is operating at a reduced capacity during the pandemic. Delivery via drone, which took just 10 minutes, allowed medical staff who were craving Yoshinoya beef bowls to enjoy a hot, meaty meal with more freshly cooked flavor than what land-based delivery options allow.

YD-3-1.jpg

The delivery was a joint effort between Yoshinoya, food delivery service Demae-can (whose smartphone ordering app hospital staff used to place their orders), drone design company Aeronext, and IT firm Access. While the companies didn’t mention the maximum payload of the drone, the video shows it transporting four beef bowls without any problems, not even minor spillage of their contents in flight.

YD-4-1.jpg

The system could also be useful in Yoshinoya’s disaster relief efforts, if victims in areas inaccessible by roads need food.

Yoshinoya isn’t adding drone delivery to its permanent service options just yet, however, as this was primarily a concept/feasibility check for the idea itself. They showed that it can be done, though, and it looks like the days when beef bowls fly may come sooner than the days when pigs fly.

Sources: PR Times, NHK News Web

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

-- Yoshinoya has an ultra-luxurious wagyu beef bowl you can only get one place in Japan【Taste test】

-- Japan’s beef bowl king, Yoshinoya, releases new line of canned, ready-to-eat beef bowls

-- Japan’s first beef bowl vending machine goes into service in Tokyo

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

6 Comments
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Will never be impressed on this type of ridiculous joke. Do Japanese really have to say 'Oishi'? I bet they will even if i give them British tuna sandwich.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Despite just being just a PR stunt, it’s refreshing to see private business, at least, ‘thinking ahead’ before further disasters.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Truly innovative’ and ‘original ideas’ will be needed by Japanese small businesses ‘to face competition’ and ‘create their own business sustainability’ when they are abandoned, ‘again’ by their government during additional future crises.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

The skilled chefs & drone technicians have made ‘significant efforts to insure the product does not make contact with the rotors’.

“The system could also be useful in Yoshinoya’s disaster relief efforts, if victims in areas inaccessible by roads need food.” -*

However, it remains doubtful this can be used in a practical manner when in a ‘real’ disaster, happens as the article postulates.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Aerial drones are only effective in ‘open’ areas not congested with power lines, signage, varying architecture.

“The system could also be useful in Yoshinoya’s disaster relief efforts, if victims in areas inaccessible by roads need food.” -*

Walking, crawling and centipede-like drones are more practical in reaching disaster victims amongst heavy wooded, rocky, mountainous terrains. However, cannot account for the condition the this select menu would be in once it reaches its intended destination.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Doesn't Yoshinoya have a pork bowl? It would go better with their When Pigs Fly into to the article.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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