Ferra — Uber x Albert Heijn

Uber was entering grocery delivery in the Netherlands, partnering with Albert Heijn. Design the integration. I led a team of four as PM — responsible for strategy, stakeholder alignment, and the design direction.

The obvious problem was logistics — how do you get groceries from an AH store to someone's door through Uber's platform? But I kept coming back to something we noticed in the user interviews we ran with twelve regular delivery users.

People feel guilty using fast delivery services. Bad weather, late hours, a hangover — the moments when you most want delivery are the moments when you most feel bad about making someone bike through the rain for your groceries. Seven of our twelve interviewees mentioned guilt unprompted. During those guilt-heavy moments, sales data from AH showed a measurable dip. The people who need the service most aren't using it.

Meanwhile, Albert Heijn throws away 30 million kilos of food per year. Roughly 3 billion soda cans worth of waste. I found that number in AH's own sustainability report and it stayed in my head.

I brought both findings to the team in the same meeting and the connection was immediate. These two problems cancel each other out. If Uber delivers food that would otherwise be thrown away, the guilt disappears. Ordering groceries that were about to hit the bin doesn't feel lazy. And Albert Heijn reduces losses on products approaching their expiration date.

We considered a few models. A separate app — too much friction. A filter within Uber Eats — buried. A dedicated section within the AH integration — right. Visible but not forced. The concept landed on Ferra: a branded section within the Uber × AH integration that surfaces near-expiry products first. A 35% discount for the user. Reduced waste for AH. Guilt-free delivery for everyone involved.

I mapped the competitive landscape to make sure we weren't building something that already existed. Too Good To Go tackles food waste but can't do fast delivery. Gorillas (at the time) does fast delivery but doesn't touch waste. Ferra sits between them: fast and waste-reducing. That gap is where the value lives.

I designed the visual identity for Ferra to stand apart from Uber's cold black-and-white. The food waste angle needed to feel warm and positive, not preachy. Dark green base, coral pink highlights, gold accents. The name "Ferra" comes from the idea of fermentation — turning something about to expire into something valuable.

We presented Ferra to a panel of professors and industry advisors as part of the project management course. The feedback centered on the reframe — the panel hadn't expected a grocery delivery brief to produce a sustainability concept. The competitive gap analysis (Too Good To Go vs Gorillas vs Ferra) was called out as the strongest part of the strategy.

I got lucky that these two problems cancelled each other out. The brief said "deliver groceries." The answer turned out to be "deliver the groceries nobody else wants before they go to waste."