Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and was not aware of the drink’s caffeine content, which exceeded that of cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, according to a legal filing
Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and was not aware of the drink’s caffeine content, which exceeded that of cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, according to a legal filing
I keep seeing the “personal responsibility” phrase in this thread and I feel like it’s missing the point. I suppose the thinking is “some people ruin it for everyone”, but frankly where is the corporate responsibilities? As another poster put it, why is a quadruple monster sold at a place famous for their soup? That amount of stimulus is intense for people without health conditions. Would the general public truly be losing out if Panera had this labeled as several energy drinks flavored lemonade?
The larger issue is that caffeine should be regulated to a higher degree than it is, but Panera received tons of backlash a year ago when this was debuted and ignored it. Chains this size have their meals painstakingly tested and formulated, it was reckless to treat this as just another fountain drink.
Let me ask the counter-question. Why is a half-strength coffee sold at a place known as a major coffee-and-study spot?
Panera as a business has often needed to ride multiple markets to survive, and the giant coffee setups they’ve had for the last 20 years when you walk in every door doesn’t scream “soup”. Have you ever heard of the Unlimited Sip Club? They sell various drinks, but the primary marketing image is a girl holding a giant iced coffee (which has at least as much caffeine as the charged lemonade). And honestly, they’ve always been fairly open about the fact almost every beverage they sell is caffeinated and there are absolutely (unlimited refill) items on the menu with more caffeine than these charged lemonades.
The only argument that IMO gives Panera any responsibility on this is the people who showed pictures of SOME Paneras where the giant" as caffeinated as our coffee" sign is hidden behind the counter. They literally lie upwards in caffeine content in their warnings (20oz of this drink is only as caffeinated as 8oz of their coffee but they say it’s the same content)
If I were an asshole lawyer, I would file a suit that they were misleading by claiming it’s as caffeinated as their coffee. In fact, I’m guessing that would be their slam-dunk defense except we all know they’ll settle because they don’t want bad press.
Does that mean you also want to put coffee and iced-coffee dispensers under lock and key? They have a LOT more caffeine than this drink. I’ve paid for bottomless coffee before and taken generous advantage of it. The issue was this girl had an underlying medical condition and was supposed to avoid caffeine. Period.
And their lawyers argument is that Panera doesn’t sell a dark roast coffee with 390ml total caffeine because they’re 16oz cups (with unlimited refills)
Honestly, it’s a tragedy. But Panera is only to blame if there’s information we don’t have in the article that makes them so.
Thank you, a rational take here, everyone has their pitchforks out and aren’t thinking logically about how to deal with it aside from ridiculous things like “it should be illegal!”
It is definitely a tragedy and I feel for the family and friends, however we shouldn’t be jumping to banning it. That is how we end up with a nanny state, some things need to be regulated of course and in this instance it needs to be extremely clear to customers how much caffeine they’ll be injesting.
There’s a lot of things I think are justified bans. Alcoholic energy drinks are a huge example because of the lethal way those two substances interplay on each other (a friend of mine died from a heart condition caused by having too many jaeger bombs). But energy drinks are not killing people left-and-right. And this is very probably the only death that will come from this Panera charged lemonade in its entire run, however long that is.
Even banning alcoholic energy drinks seems a bit too far, I’m generally more in favor of regulating and making warnings for those who are able to handle such things to be able to still enjoy them, rather then banning them because some have preexisting conditions or aren’t able to moderate themselves.
Definitely fair though, I wouldn’t argue strongly against limiting alcohol access in general as we as a society have normalized basically alcoholism and abusing it. I’m not sure what the right answer is on that one :/ I just generally prefer freedom to a sane extent over banning certain things.
For me in full understanding of how alcohol+energy drinks cause accute alcohol poisoning, I’m ok with forcing people to go through the work of combining them on their own. Nobody is saying you can’t sell red bull in a bar, only that you can’t buy a 24-pack of the stuff premixed.
My thought on banning has always been this. It’s fine to restrict a highly combined product if you allow its components. Someone mixing redbull with jaeger is thinking. Someone drinking a premade alcoholic energy drink is slightly different.
I’m comfortable with our current limitations on alcohol, personally…at least when they’re followed.