Uber Eats Edits Super Bowl Ad After Backlash

(RTTNews) - Uber Eats has edited its Super Bowl advertisement, removing a portion that joked about dangerous peanut allergies. The food delivery firm had faced severe backlash for making fun of food allergies, which could cause millions of people to struggle for their lives.

Super Bowl commercials are featured in the U.S. television broadcast of the Super Bowl, the annual league championship game of the National Football League or NFL.

Uber had started promoting its video online earlier last week, ahead of the American football championship that took place on Sunday.

Uber Eats' minute-long TV ad, under the tagline "Don't forget to remember Uber Eats", centers around forgetfulness. It features actress Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, David Beckham, his wife, Victoria, rapper Jelly Roll, and Usher, and tells the tales of people forgetting key information.

The initial ad showed one man with a swollen eye eating from a peanut butter jar, having forgotten it contained peanuts. He comments, "There's peanuts in peanut butter?… Oh, it's the primary ingredient."

Following its debut, social media users poured heavy criticism, arguing that it was rude to millions of people who suffer from the life-threatening allergy.

On the X platform, the non-profit group Food Allergy Research & Education or FARE wrote, "We're incredibly disappointed by @UberEats' use of life-threatening food allergies as humor in its Super Bowl ad. The suffering of 33M+ Americans with this condition is no joke. Life-threatening food allergy is a disease, not a diet. Enough is enough."

FARE CEO Sung Poblete, after contacting Uber, announced that the company agreed to make a change to the ad by editing out the reference to the peanut allergy.

The new ad now shows a man who has forgotten how to "have a seat."

"I want to thank you, our community, for speaking up so that our voices could be heard as we change the way life-threatening food allergies are perceived," Poblete added.

Food allergy, a potentially serious immune response to eating specific foods or food additives, is caused mainly by milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 6 percent of U.S. adults and children have a food allergy.

Peanut allergy is a major cause of death from anaphylaxis - a severe allergic reaction, resulting in swelling of the throat and tongue, particularly in teenagers, though the rate is low.