Award-winning Scots bakery set to use unmanned drones to deliver sweet treats to customers

STEPHENS Bakery, in Dunfermline, are employing the very latest technology to deliver their produce to customers in half the time of road deliveries, writes Ellie Copta.

IT’S the Great Scottish Take-off – a bakery are testing unmanned flying drones to make high-speed deliveries.

Stephens Bakery, winners of last year’s Scottish Baker of the Year award, are following in the footsteps of retail giants Amazon, who revealed similar plans back in December.

The Dunfermline bakery’s trials of the new delivery service began in the last two weeks and boss Andre Sarafilovic admits customers at first found the idea of drone drop-offs hard to swallow.

But he says they are now hungry for more.

He said: “We’re staying ahead of the game by employing the very latest technology to deliver our award-winning pies and bakery produce to customers in half the time of road deliveries.

“Our first prototype only has a two-mile radius from our HQ and can carry four products at a time.

“It is linked to Google Maps, which is how we can remote control it to the customer’s postcode.

“The customer gets a text message to say the drone is due to land and with a downloadable app, they can track the delivery. They text back to say the product has been received safely and the drone returns to base to collect its next delivery.”

Amazon said they intended to use drones to deliver packages to customers within 30 minutes of an order.

But experts say unmanned drones are at risk of being intercepted and their contents stolen – going to show you can’t always order your cake and eat it.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/award-winning-scots-bakery-set-use-3320052