Domino’s: The Evolution of home Delivery

The evolution of Domino’s delivery service in Australia and New Zealand is a unique journey ‘fuelled’ by innovation.

Featuring everything from retro vans to autonomous delivery vehicles and drones, Domino’s is proud to offer the ultimate convenience… home delivery.

And unlike some of our competitors, our business was built for home delivery. We’ve been doing it from the very start.

Arriving in Australia in 1983, Domino’s became one of the very first pizza chains to offer delivery ‘down under’.

Today, under Project 3TEN, our goal is to prepare hot, freshly made pizza ready for carry-out within three minutes, or safely delivered within ten. How is that possible, you may ask? By opening more stores closer to customers, utilising high-speed cooking technology, and introducing convention crushing technology that reaffirms Domino’s status as the world leaders in pizza delivery.

So, fasten your seat belts, charge up your e-bikes and calibrate your autonomous delivery vehicles, because we’re taking a trip down memory lane.

While still used for some deliveries today, Domino’s current fleet of delivery vehicles is a little more… subtle. For anyone reading this born after 2003, that’s a phone, not a giant handle, atop the pizza van.

Before merging with Domino’s in 1995, Silvio’s Dial-a-Pizza delivered to the suburban streets of Australia in these eye-catching automobiles. Back then, current CEO and Managing Director Don Meij was just a humble delivery driver, no doubt dreaming of faster (and flashier) ways to deliver fresh pizza to hungry Aussies.

The electric scooter: 2011

After a successful eight-month trial by our New Farm store in Brisbane, Domino’s started using electric scooters to safely deliver freshly cooked pizza in 2011. Modified specifically for pizza delivery, these sleek machines also boasted a reduced carbon footprint compared to their delivery predecessor.

Speaking of sleek, check out the scooters our team in Japan are currently using to navigate the small, chaotic streets of Tokyo!

The e-bike: 2015

Let’s hear it for pedal powered pizza. We’re taking this delivery off-road.

To transport your piping hot pizza from store to door, Domino’s delivery experts started hitting the footpath in 2015 on electric bikes (with your pizza safely stowed in the custom carrier box of course!).

Eco-friendly and quiet, Domino’s electric bikes keep riders active and help further reduce carbon emissions, as Domino’s works towards a goal of two million e-bike deliveries in Australia each year.

GPS Driver Tracker: May 2015

For the first time in history, hungry customers were no longer left wondering ‘Where’s my pizza?”

Launching globally in May 2015, Domino’s GPS Driver Technology changed the home delivery game forever – linking Domino’s online ordering system with delivery experts so customers can track their order from the minute it leaves the store to the moment it arrives at their door.

Is there anything better than watching your pizza make its way closer to you? No, we didn’t think so.

The Robot: March 2016

Meet DOM, the most innovative (and arguably cutest!) pizza-delivering expert yet to join the Domino’s team.

DOM is everything you could want in a pizza delivery specialist; adorable, non-judgmental, and warm.

And by warm we mean that DOM comes with a built-in heated compartment so it’s just like receiving your pizza straight from the oven.

As the world’s first autonomous delivery vehicle, DOM is currently in a trial phase, learning how to deliver piping hot pizza to our customers.

The drone: November 2016

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it’s my fresh-from-the-oven pizza being delivered by a drone!

Domino’s reinvented the delivery game in late 2016 by completing the world’s first commercial home pizza delivery by drone in New Zealand.

In partnership with Australian drone company, Flirtey – who happen to employ the former head of drones at NASA – Domino’s continues to expand its drone delivery trial in New Zealand, with the ultimate goal to fully integrate drone delivery into online ordering systems.

Rain, hail (maybe not), or shine, the DOM drone lowers your piping hot pizzas via tether before promptly returning to the store for another delivery, leaving you to wonder what on earth is next for Domino’s delivery evolution.