Lightweight, styrofoam drones will soon be flying over Victoria, delivering meals and packages to homes in Melbourne’s sprawling outer-eastern suburbs as Alphabet subsidiary Wing ramps up its expansion of the technology in Australia.

Wing, which shares its parent company with search giant Google, has been delivering packages to parts of south-eastern Queensland for five years. This week it will expand to a section of Melbourne’s east covering a population of 250,000 who live near Eastland Shopping Centre in Ringwood.