Would You Trust A Drone To Deliver Your Food? GrubHub Thinks You Should

The popular food delivery service Grubhub is partnering with Dexa, a drone delivery company, in a collaboration that will have restaurant orders literally flying to your front door. Wonder, the parent company of Grubhub, is testing this service within a 2.5-mile radius of its Green Brook, New Jersey location, and the trial program will last for three months.

Would you trust a drone to deliver your food? If you've ever had a Grubhub driver drop your soda or jostle your pizza beyond recognition, you might barely trust a human to do the job, let alone a drone. It's not just about the condition of your order, though, as there are also safety concerns with drone delivery. As recently as October 2025, Amazon delivery drones crashed into a crane cable in an accident that could have caused serious injury.

Drone delivery is an exciting concept, but experts have expressed concerns about surveillance and privacy. In a Food Institute article, James McDanolds, program chair for the School of Uncrewed Technology at the Sonoran Desert Institute, said, "Drones are now so tied to surveillance fears and wartime use that a lot of people are going to bring those fears to the forefront."

Despite hiccups and accidents that companies like Amazon have experienced with drone delivery systems in the past, the reality is that drones are becoming more capable of delivering products directly to consumers. A Chinese drone fleet handles lunch delivery in the city of Hefei on a large scale, and this drone fleet also handles a wide variety of other shipping tasks and even aerial transportation. At the same time, the Chinese government is actively regulating drone certification and legal liability. The combination of innovation and regulation is pushing drone technology into a more reliable state of use.

Safety and compliance are paramount for automated drone delivery. Grubhub's drone-delivery pilot program uses Dexa's fully automated DE-2020 drone, and this craft is certified under the Federal Aviation Administration's Part 135 Package Delivery by Drone operations. It's a top-of-the-line hexacopter craft that meets high standards for oversight and sustainability. To put it plainly, the Grubhub drones are far more advanced than a consumer craft like the Antigravity A1 8K 360 we reviewed. Whether or not you should trust it as a food-delivery robot remains to be seen.