For hundreds of millions of people around the world, food allergies have drastically changed their everyday lives —making simple tasks like ordering food difficult and frustrating at times. After successfully testing Uber’s new allergy features in the UK and Ireland in 2023, our team has been hard at work listening to the food-allergic community and thinking about new ways to create a better online food delivery process for these individuals across the globe.

In recognition of Food Allergy Awareness Month, we’re pleased to introduce a new suite of allergy features, designed to improve the ordering experience for consumers with food allergies and make the process easier for merchants who receive allergy requests. 

This new set of features includes:

  • Declaimers noted on each store details page (accessible by the caret on storefront) that tell a consumer if a restaurant can accommodate food allergies or not.
  • A special instructions field dedicated to allergy requests that will encourage consumers to disclose their allergies when they order at eligible merchants. Consumers can choose from a pre-selected list of the most common allergens or enter their own, and the information will be saved to their account. 
  • The ability for consumers to call the merchant and disclose food allergies, if the merchant is able to receive phone calls. 

Sung Poblete, Ph.D, RN, CEO of FARE commented: “As a champion for the food allergy community, FARE is pleased by Uber’s proactive approach to ensuring that the millions of Americans with food allergies can share allergy restrictions with restaurants. We appreciate Uber’s work to make online food delivery more accessible to people with the disease of food allergy, and we look forward to our continued partnership.” 

We’ve also made it easier for merchants to accept food allergy requests by: 

  • Highlighting consumer allergy disclosures for merchants on the Uber Eats Orders app and on the printed receipt in bold so that merchants can more easily see them and not miss them. 
  • Giving merchants the new ability to more easily contact a consumer if the merchant is unable to accommodate an allergy request, to help determine how to proceed.

“With the dramatic increase in online ordering and the use of delivery apps, effective communication between foodservice establishments and consumers with food allergy is vital, said Jennifer Gerdts, Executive Director at Food Allergy Canada.” “With Uber Eats’ new allergy request feature, consumers can now disclose their food allergies in a more streamlined way with participating restaurants, which means they can make more informed decisions. We look forward to our continued collaborations with Uber Eats and others in the foodservice industry to ensure consumers with food allergy can navigate safe food choices.”

These features are rolling out across the US and Canada this May, with a global rollout starting in June.