Dive Brief:
- Papa Johns is working with Wing, Alphabet’s drone delivery outfit, to offer delivery of the pizza chain’s Oven Toasted Sandwiches from aerial drones in some of Charlotte, North Carolina, according to a Monday press release.
- The collaboration is Wing’s first direct partnership with a national QSR chain, according to the press release.
- Over time, the two companies will work together to confront the physical challenges of delivering pizza by drone.
Dive Insight:
The drone collaboration is initially restricted to sandwiches, rather than Papa Johns’ core menu items. As a result, the more significant pairing is likely Wing’s integration with the chain’s ordering systems, which allows the companies to test the ordering infrastructure for future expansions.
Wing’s drone network will integrate directly with Papa Johns’ first-party app and Lou AI, its digital pizza assistant, which is powered by Google Cloud, the press release states.
Kevin Vasconi, chief digital and technology officer at the pizza brand, said the drone delivery operation, currently available in a single peripheral market, would fundamentally shift how consumers interact with the pizza brand’s digital channels.
Papa Johns has struggled to drive sales growth as of late, with now-defunct menu items like Papadias and Papa Bites failing to drive enough sales to justify their operational complexity. At the same time, consumer trade down from larger, premium pies to smaller pizzas with fewer toppings has dented the brand’s same-store sales. The chain’s sandwich launch earlier this spring was meant to expand the dayparts it can address through its menu, while adding items that are easier to produce than the Papadias and Papa Bites.
New ordering channels — like Wing’s app — could help the brand acquire new consumers. But the immediate benefit of that is likely to be limited, given the relatively small scale of restaurant drone deployment in the U.S.
The restaurant drone delivery sphere is expanding. Flytrex and Little Caesars recently announced a heavy-duty drone capable of delivering two large pizzas. Last summer, Flytrex received FAA approval for wider-ranging delivery. In May 2025, DoorDash and Wing launched delivery operations also in the Charlotte, North Carolina, region.
