- Uber Eats faced a backlash over a new commercial released ahead of Super Bowl LVIII.
- The “Don’t Forget Uber Eats” ad has been criticized for appearing to use a peanut allergy as a joke.
- The CEO of a food allergy charity has said that the company has agreed to edit the commercial.
Uber Eats has said it will edit its new Super Bowl commercial after it was criticized for appearing to make a joke about a man’s peanut allergy.
The ad, titled “Don’t Forget Uber Eats,” features stars David and Victoria Beckham and actors Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer, based on the idea of people forgetting things.
In the advertisment, Aniston “forgets” the identity of her former “Friends” costar, while the Beckhams struggle to recall the name of Victoria’s girl group, the “Spice Girls.”
But the Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) charity said it was “incredibly disappointed” at another part of the commercial, where it said the company depicted the “use of life-threatening food allergies as humor.”
In the scene, a man holding a jar of peanut butter and appearing to be suffering from swelling and skin hives asks: “There’s peanuts in peanut butter?”
“Oh, it’s the primary ingredient,” he adds.
Social media users slammed the commercial, with one saying that it made it “worse for allergy sufferers” and that it was “dangerous to make a joke out of a life-threatening allergy.”
Food Allergy Canada, a nonprofit organization that helps Canadians suffering from food allergies, added that such conditions were “no joke.”
But Sung Poblete, the CEO of FARE, has since released a statement saying she had been in contact with a senior Uber Eats executive who said that the company would edit the commercial, the food allergy website Allergic Living reported.
“To our entire community, I extend my heartfelt gratitude for making our voices heard. I spoke with Uber today, and they are editing out the reference to the peanut allergy in their Super Bowl commercial,” Poblete said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday.
“Thank you, Uber, for hearing our perspective and becoming a FARE ally,” she added. “So glad that this is a win for our food allergy community.”
Business Insider has contacted Uber Eats and FARE for comment.
