Type: Feature Proposal — Product Design & PM Timeline: December 2025 – February 2026 My role: Product Manager & Product Designer Prototype: https://uber-eats-dietary-filter-feaure.lovable.app
A friend of mine can't eat pork for religious reasons. One evening she ordered a meal on Uber Eats — there was no warning that it contained pork, no way to know until she tasted it. For her, it wasn't just an inconvenience. It was a violation of something that matters deeply to her, caused by a platform that gave her no tools to protect herself.
My own experience was different but pointed to the same gap. I removed cheese from an order — specifically, deliberately — and the restaurant included it anyway. When I stopped and asked myself what would have happened if I had been allergic, the answer was uncomfortable.
Two different experiences. Two different kinds of stakes. The same underlying failure: Uber Eats gives users no reliable way to know what is actually in their food before they order it.
Ingredients are listed inconsistently across restaurants. There are no allergy filters. There are no cross-contamination warnings. No preference settings. For the millions of people who order with dietary restrictions — whether for medical necessity, religious observance, or personal choice — every order involves a degree of trust that the platform has not earned.
The problem in one sentence: People with allergies, intolerances, and dietary restrictions have no reliable way to know if a meal on Uber Eats is actually safe for them to order — and the platform currently gives them no tools to find out.
The market is large and underserved. There are an estimated 32 million Americans with food allergies alone — and hundreds of millions more globally with religious dietary requirements (halal, kosher, Hindu vegetarian) or medical conditions (coeliac disease, lactose intolerance, diabetes) that make food choices consequential, not casual. These are not edge-case users. They are a significant, high-frequency audience that food delivery platforms have lar gely ignored.
Competitors haven't solved it. Deliveroo has basic dietary labels on some listings — vegan, gluten-free — but no filtering system, no preference settings, and no cross-contamination warnings. DoorDash has rudimentary category filters but nothing close to a personalized dietary profile. No major food delivery platform has built a feature that treats allergy and dietary awareness as a first-class product concern. That gap is an opportunity.
The business case is retention and acquisition. Users with dietary restrictions who cannot trust Uber Eats are not just frustrated — they are lost revenue. Some of them have left the platform entirely. A feature that makes Uber Eats the safest, most personalized food ordering experience for this audience doesn't just retain existing users — it captures a large, underserved market that competitors have not figured out. Users who feel safe on a platform become loyal, high-frequency customers. That loyalty compounds over time.
Uber Eats focuses on food. Unlike DoorDash and Deliveroo, which have expanded into general delivery, Uber Eats remains primarily focused on food ordering. That focus makes a deep, thoughtful dietary feature more coherent as a product investment — it reinforces the platform's core identity rather than sitting awkwardly alongside groceries and parcels.
I spoke with students and faculty across different dietary situations — people with medical allergies, religious restrictions, and lifestyle preferences — to understand how they currently navigate food delivery and what the experience actually feels like.
The current experience
The clearest picture of the status quo came from Chidera, who described her process ordering dairy-free:
"I just check — sometimes I can remove cheese, other times I just hope they don't include it."