The sky’s the limit when it comes to drone delivery as companies like Amazon and Chili’s pilot the pilot-less aircraft tech with the promise of faster (and more environmentally friendly) transportation to your doorstep.

Prepare for takeoff: Amazon plans to enlist 1,300 shoppers in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, to test Prime Air drone delivery starting in September, Insider reported this week.

• Consumers can choose from ~3,000 products weighing less than five pounds, spanning pharmaceutical, beauty, and pet goods, according to documents Insider obtained.
• Amazon wants to conduct a minimum of 12,000 test flights by year’s end—5,000 of them for transporting goods to customers—to help secure regulatory approval from the FAA.

The e-comm giant has been quietly testing this service on a smaller scale near its Oregon- and California-based drone facilities over the past 18 months with products like an UNO card set.

• It first announced plans for drone delivery in 2013, but has hit some turbulence along the way, leading to dozens of Prime Air layoffs in 2020.

Buffalo winging it: While Amazon targets CPG delivery, Israeli startup Flytrex is helping takeout take off. This week, it debuted its drone-delivery service in Granbury, Texas, expanding a partnership with Brinker International, the parent company of Chili’s, Maggiano’s Little Italy, and virtual brand It’s Just Wings. Residents of Granbury can now get milkshakes delivered to their yards via drone within five minutes, according to the company.

The move comes after a successful pilot in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Flytrex also began testing drone deliveries with Walmart in North Carolina in 2020; that program was expanded last year after the startup gained FAA approval to fly over people, growing its reach to 2,000+ homes.

• Drones can carry up to 6.6 pounds and fly five miles round trip, per the company.

Full flight: FedEx is thinking bigger. It announced yesterday it’s teaming up with cargo-drone maker Elroy Air to test shuttling packages across sorting hubs using the pilot-less aircraft, which can carry up to 500 pounds.

• The hybrid-electric drone can travel ~300 miles and has a 28-foot wingspan with vertical takeoff, so it can take flight from a facility’s parking lot.

Joe Stephens, VP of FedEx’s Express unit, told Bloomberg the tech helps the company “drive efficiency, safety, and reliability and support customer demand” while advancing its sustainability objectives.—EC

Making fashion more sustainable may soon become more than just talk. The European Union shared part of its vision for a greener industry on Wednesday, which included proposed new design standards that would make goods easier to repair and recycle.

More on the stitch: The proposal also includes mandatory minimums for recycled content, plus “digital passports” that boast a product’s street sustainability cred.

• Companies would also face stricter regulations related to greenwashing, transparency, and the status of clothes when they can’t be sold.

“Textiles have been under the radar up until now,” Maria Luisa Martínez Díez, public affairs director of Global Fashion Agenda, told Business of Fashion. “This is the EU marking the pathway for the rest of the world.” (Though it may take a while for these proposals to turn into legislation.)

The big picture: The rest of the world, though watching, is also doing its part. New York State is considering the Fashion Act, a sweeping sustainability bill that would, in part, require companies with $100+ million in annual revenue to map at least 50% of their supply chain.—KM

Things are getting real for augmented-reality glasses startup Nreal. It nabbed $60 million in a Series C extension funding round led by e-comm giant Alibaba.

• Beijing-based Nreal plans to bolster its investments in R&D with the new capital.

To the metaverse: Alibaba, meanwhile, has its sights on the metaverse—a market that could be worth ~$8 trillion in China alone, according to Morgan Stanley. It’s an opportunity to captivate new audiences, especially in a country where livestreaming and social commerce already dominate.

“Metaverse is the future of social network. All China’s tech giants have to embrace it to find new ways to engage the youngest generation of internet users,” Winston Ma, managing partner and co-founder at Cloudtree Ventures, told CNBC.

• TikTok owner ByteDance acquired virtual-reality headset brand Pico last year, while NetEase has established a base in China to develop metaverse applications.

And beyond: Nreal hopes to use the cash influx to expand its presence within China, but the startup isn’t completely unknown outside of the country. It debuted its Light AR glasses in South Korea in 2020, and ventured into Spain and the US in 2021.—JS

Today’s top retail reads.

No-man’s-land: In the islands of French Polynesia, local businesses have taken delivery into their own hands. “People in other countries wait less than 24 hours to have their goods in front of them,” said John Tehuritaua, head of the international arm of French Polynesia’s Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Services, and Trades. “If you send goods to and from Tahiti, it can take two to three weeks.” (Rest of World)

Public outing: How Grove Collaborative, which is readying for its upcoming public debut, is also preparing for the future. (Retail Dive)

Pharm out: The robot will fill your prescription now. That’s at least one way Walgreens sees the future of the pharmacy evolving. (CNBC)

Avoid Angry Andy: One-star customer reviews are a blight on your brand … and a bummer to read. Learn how you can build a return and exchange process that turns those frowns upside down in a piece we wrote with the experts at Loop. Read it here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Welcome to the future, where sneakers are made with dandelions and jackets are crafted from fungi. This week, the Material Innovation Initiative (MII) released its annual industry report, showing that a total of $2.3 billion has been invested in next-gen materials since 2015. We’re talking fabrics made without animals or plastics, and used as alternatives to goods like leather, fur, silk, and polyester.

All in on alts: Last year, 187 investors and 95 companies raised $980 million for next-gen materials, more than double 2020’s $426 million, per MII. The nonprofit predicts the global wholesale market for next-gen materials will hit roughly $2.2 billion by 2026.

• Of the 95 companies, 49 of them used plant-based materials as their primary sources.

After plant-based, the most-used next-gen materials are microbe-derived materials, blends, mycelium, recycled material, and cultivated animal cells. (Quick science lesson: Mycelium mimics a mushroom’s growth and is used as a leather alternative, while microbe-derived materials are made from cellular-engineering approaches like cell culture or fermentation.)

Hold your purses: MII predicts next-gen materials will account for just 3% of the $70 billion leather materials market by 2026. Hermès mushroom bags aside, next-gen alts are still far from mainstream.—JG

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