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
Reporting in after having just come from Panera due to this article. Didn’t read article, and it might be click bait or might not. I do know that the drink in question is slapped right beside all the typical juices and sodas, and the label says “contains as much as our dark roast coffee” then below that, even less obvious it gives serving sizes & caffeine amounts. Call me crazy, but I doubt your average consumer is going to consider just how much caffeine might be in LEMONADE.
Panera is definitely losing this one. It could even be argued that they chose a product with that much caffeine and to not really advertise it based on the amounts of caffeine of the 30oz literally being a hair’s width away from the potential danger threshold.
My biggest question is what is the market for this? Who is like: I really want a lemonade but I want it to have more caffeine than a redbull! It seems like such a weird product in general.
If you want caffeine and you are at a bakery, you are going to get a coffee or tea. If you are at a bakery and want lemonade, you probably aren’t trying to get ‘charged’ or else youd just get a coffee or tea.
You can’t believe that people would want heroic doses of sugar and caffeine, two of the most available addictive substances on the market?
Also a lot of people don’t like the taste of coffee or tea
I’m basically the target audience for this and I’d never heard of it
Agreed that it is a very weird product to just kinda… have
There’s still a large number of us wondering wtf the market for Red Bull is. I want a drink with the flavor and consistency of watered down Stretch Armstrong guts with more caffeine than anything that has ever existed. It seems like such a weird product in general.
I’m apparently one of the few people that actually like the taste of redbull, but talking about market, redbull is all about giving people energy, be it real or not is another thing, people buy it when they want to party all night long, when they need to study for a test and don’t want to fall asleep or whatever else related to energy (or just because they like the taste like me lol) so the market does exist.
And since taste was talked about, I absolutely hate the taste of beer and especially those high hop content ones, but they’re incredibly popular, what’s up with that?
IDK about others but beer tasted horrible to me for years. After a while it just grew on me. Apparently your taste buds change and get weaker as you grow older so strong tastes start tasting better.
Red Bull tastes so fucking bad. It’s like cough medicine
Who is like: I really want a lemonade but I want it to have more caffeine than a redbull!
It doesn’t have more caffeine than a red bull per unit volume. But yes, if you compare the largest size to one can of red bull it will win out. So will drinking a similar volume of coffee.
And I’d guess the market for it is people who want coffee levels of caffeine but don’t like the taste of coffee or the citrus battery acid taste of energy drinks.
The 30oz size has 390mg caffeine. The FDA says 400mg a day is not generally associated with harmful effects for adults without heart conditions etc. If the FDA says up to 400mg is fine, I don’t think it’s fair to call that the “danger threshold.” That’s like calling the speed limit the “danger threshold.” It’s set there for a reason, but you don’t go from “no adverse effects” to “danger” as soon as you cross the line.
It’s advertised as having the same amount of caffeine as their coffee. 30oz of coffee is a pretty significant amount. Not typically dangerous, but hardly something you can drink by accident.
390 in a serving versus 400 per day.
That’s an entire days worth in one blast.
Most people normally don’t drink their caffeine over a 24 hour period. Maybe a couple hours. The half-life of caffeine in the body being about 5 hours, the peak concentration of caffeine won’t be that much higher. Note the FDA doesn’t say “400mg is safe but only if you don’t drink it all at once.”
It’s sad that someone loss their life to - of all things - lemonade.
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Overdose on caffeine is like an anxiety attack to me.
I get really shaky and it’s super uncomfortable.
I had to go off caffeine for a while because of a medication, and that break completely destroyed my tolerance. I’ve gotten myself back to 1.5-2 drinks a day without feeling destroyed, but it’s an incredibly unpleasant feeling, totally agree.
I don’t think they will lose. It clearly states charged lemonade which most people will understand means caffinated. Even if you don’t know that means caffinated it has lettering that is more than large enough that states it has caffeine as well as the amount. It is so apparent that this is caffinated and just as apparent how much it is. It sucks this lady died but either she is also blind as a bat or she decided to gamble and drink it.
The warning has to be reasonable for its purpose. Intended and likely to reach the consumer, and to be understood. It’s meant to fairly apprise consumers of the material risks.
There is nothing resembling a warning. That’s fine if it’s just regular lemonade. It seems to me to be positioned as basically regular lemonade and otherwise indistinguishable except for “charged,” “# mg caffiene,” and “natural ingredients.”
This information seems inadequate based on the seriousness and likelihood of the material risk. The girl’s condition is apparently pretty common, the seriousness of the danger is deathly, and the likelihood that consumers in the girl’s position are as likely as not to understand the danger. More is required.
The average consumer does not know about dosages of caffeine in milligrams, and possible side effects. The labeling seems hardly likely to inform a consumer that one glass of lemonade they are about to drink is the equivalent of drinking three cups of coffee. Who the fuck puts caffiene into lemonade? Is it even lemonade?
Edit: speech to text has gotten worse lately. Also, I have to wonder whether anyone asked for this product? I wonder what the focus groups said. Did they even do them? The more I think of this the worse the idea seems.
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The sign says outright that it has as much caffeine as coffee. If drinking an amount of coffee would be too much, drinking that much charged lemonade would be roughly equally too much.
Also, apparently she had a medical condition that meant she shouldn’t be consuming large amounts of caffeine. And she ordered and consumed a large amount of caffeine. That’s what killed her.
This is akin to arguing that a restaurant is responsible if someone with a shellfish allergy orders the shrimp.
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More than you get from one lemonade, for a healthy person. Not much less than the FDA recommended maximum per day if we’re talking about the largest size, but the gap between “maximum recommended” and overdose is a reasonable bit. If you’ve ever known someone to drink more than four cups of coffee, or as many energy drinks (or as few as 2 for certain brands), you’ve known someone who exceeded the recommended maximum. You have to go a fair bit past it to have acute issues if you are otherwise healthy.
If you have a medical condition that restricts your diet, it is on you to know what you can and cannot have and on the restaurant to make it clear when something unexpected might contain the thing. I’d argue Panera, by analogizing the amount of caffeine to an equivalent volume of coffee and also giving the explicit numerical amount in each size the drink was offered in did that.
Imagine someone suing a restaurant because they ordered a dish that contains shellfish and they have a shellfish allergy. The menu spelled out that it contained shrimp, but how is anyone supposed to know that shrimp is shellfish?
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180mg/L of blood. How much this requires ingesting is not well studied, but based on known cases is at least 5g, possibly 10g or more for a typical adult. FDA recommended maximum is 400mg.
If you sell a 30oz container, you should have to label the amount of shit that is in that container instead of making up your own, cockamamie “serving size” that does not relate to real-world situations whatsoever.
All caffinated beverages should be required to disclose their caffeine content on the packaging.
You mean like how Panera Bread does?
https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-560w,f_auto,q_auto:eco,dpr_2.0/rockcms/2023-10/231017-panera-bread-charged-lemonade-al-1019-f1a04a.jpgThe Charged Lemonade was “offered side-by-side with all of Panera’s non-caffeinated and/or less caffeinated drinks” and was advertised as a “plant-based and clean” beverage that contained as much caffeine as the restaurant’s dark roast coffee, according to photos of both the menu and beverage dispensers in the store, which were included in the wrongful death lawsuit. https://www.panerabread.com/en-us/app/product/57f9b1aa54df4bd2c2eacca55efa1c96.html
Not to disagree with you, you’re right, but I think they should also indicate how much is normal consumption. It’s quite surprising this isn’t something that’s required on the nutritional label.
I have never been to a Panera, are drinks self serve?
Last time I got this drink it was self-serve, yeah. The drinks are in large labelled containers, not like a soda fountain with just a small logo.
Agreed. Some of us are careful about how much caffeine we ingest because we want it to work when we use it, and/or because we get real twitchy when overcaffeinated.
In this case, there is a large sign on the dispenser that includes caffeine content in mg, as well as comparing it to their dark-roast coffee.
This is so saddening, I can’t imagine what her loved ones must be going through. ☹️
Heartbreaking? Did you use a pun?
No that was coincidental :/
Nice
The 30 oz has 390mg of caffeine! That’s four regular cups of coffee. I’m a big guy, and that would mess me up.
And nearly 3/4 cup of sugar. The sugar alone can trigger heart arrythmias. (I have a heart arrythmia and can’t tolerate much sugar.)
30 fl oz is A LOT of beverage, a normal sized energy drink is more like 8-16 fl oz, and usually has only 100-200 mg caffeine tops. I’ve noticed a lot of 300 mg drinks start to get phased out in favor of drinks that only have 120 mg, which is actually a pretty reasonable amount for an adult.
For instance, I’m about 190 lbs and I need close to 250 mg to adequately feel its effects for exercise, and there are studies that show this is an appropriate amount (mg/lb) for exercise benefits.
However, even though 30 fl oz with 390 mg is about in line with the smaller drinks for caffeine/volume, I think ideally they should just not offer such a large size drink.
Wait until you get on energy drinks, then it’s like a kick wake up
Dude energy drinks usually have 150-200mg. Bang, for an extreme example, only has 300mg lol. Obviously it’s more concentrated as they’re not 30oz, but the point remains.
Idk man, I feel like most have 300 now days. Seems to be the new norm.
I 'd like to, but I had to give up the caffeine. I love the pep it delivers, but if I drink it in any quantity I eventually start getting absolutely debilitating headaches.
Any free market absolutists want to try to explain to me how situations like this should be handled?
Is this poor girl just the first “collateral damage” that allows the market to (eventually) fix itself? Is it her own fault for not being an expert on caffeinated beverages before buying the drink?
I would be curious to know if the caffeine content is listed by Panera just for the sake of being curious. They could actually make an argument in court stating she should have seen the caffeine content at the time ordering.
I think the next argument to be made is that the caffeine content is for consumers without those conditions. They could simply state, “how could the company have known, because our beverages and the contents of caffeine are risky as is.”
I would like to know how much God damned caffeine has to be in something to cause someone like this to die. That is wild to me. I mean I wouldn’t drink more than one Red Bull in a day and things like 5-Hour Energy legit made me paranoid and gave me the shakes. I know where my body tolerance is.
I think I would be curious to know if the risks were posted or rather the caffeine content was posted. Most people with peanut allergies are not peanut experts but they stay aware of not being able to eat things deep fried in peanuts.
What has happened to her is really sad it’s not a question of whether she is collateral damage. It is a question of whether legally companies like Panera are posting warnings and caffeine content listings. I would also like to know if this is an employee mistake. Did someone accidentally over caffeinate the beverage.
Lots of questions here. I feel sorry for the family and it is unfortunate small things like this can kill a person. It makes you realize how small life can be and how vulnerable we are. I do feel like there is a responsibility on both parties sides but her responsibility is asking whether she knew the amount of caffeine content. Their responsibility would be determining whether that caffeine content was visible and there for her to see or even hear at the time of purchase or whether warnings should be posted by caffeine the same as they are posted by a boiling drink or food or whether something contains, nuts or eggs, etc. Additionally, should they legally be allowed to sell something with that amount of caffeine.
It’s absolutely about her being collateral damage.
If we weren’t living in a 24/7 internet/news world (say, even ~20 years ago), we wouldn’t have access to news articles about this kind of thing. The articles likely wouldn’t exist at all. The vast majority of consumers would have no idea that this girl died from this drink, and people who enjoy to consume it (heart condition or no), will continue putting themselves at risk. Panera would still sell this product, and the profit margin is massive. Why would they stop when literally nobody knows the drink killed a girl?
And this would keep happening until “the invisible hand” of the market corrects things, if it ever does. Because it only really could if enough people heard about the dangers of this beverage to literally put them out of business. And we’ve already established that these stories weren’t a common thing until recently.
How many people do you think would need to die for that happen?
This honestly isn’t even a great example, but it still works. Just look at any dangerous product that ruined or ended countless lives in the not so distant past, before the government was forced to step in to regulate (asbestos, thalidomide, lead, CFCs, etc etc). Note that all of those things would never have been outlawed/regulated if the government hadn’t stepped in. If we would have just sat back and allowed the free market to handle it, millions more would be dead, and there would still be an ever growing hole in the ozone layer.
All just collateral damage in the bullshit concept of free markets
There used to be a product called Redline: White Heat from VPX (same people that make bang with the unhinged CEO). It had to be taken off the market because it had an amphetamine analogue in it called AMP Citrate or DMBA.
One scoop of that stuff made me feel like I was going to die. My friend who took Ritalin at the time told me it was more powerful than any other stimulant he had before.
It’s crazy to think this was openly available at health supplement stores for years before the FDA caught wind.
amphetamine analogue
citation needed
Here is the original FDA letter to VPX regarding White Heat. The chemical they are focusing on is 4-Amino-2-Methylpentane Citrate also known as 1,3-Dimethylbutylamine, DMBA, 2-amino-4-methylpentane, AMP citrate, and 4-methyl-2-pentanamine (according to the FDA letter). Upon further research, it seems like, although the structure of the compound is similar to an amphetamine, the actual mechanism of action of these and similar compounds, such as DMAA, still isn’t fully known. So it was a bit inaccurate of me to call it an “amphetamine analogue” since they might not work in a similar manner.
I don’t know about that drink of theirs and have the same doubts as you but here in nl some companies produce ever-changing molecules that are close to the real stuff but different enough that the specific compound isn’t banned yet. The one I know of only sells to other European countries.
That product had nothing on the one before it; Clenbutrix. I used to take it all the time you had to squirt it in the back of your throat with the supplied syringe. Daily use would make my throat and tongue sore, and if it hit your tongue well… good luck with those taste buds lol.
It’s crazy they got away with that for as long as they did.
There are two things I would consider: first, it’s only relatively recently (i.e. last 100 years) that people cared about this sort of thing. Enforcement and cultural change is slow. Second, a lot of these substances can actually be used as part of a workout routine and weren’t developed with abuse in mind. GHB is an example of that–it apparently increased the ability for people to work out, but also will render you unconscious if mixed with alcohol. Until roughly 20 years ago, any GNC just sold it in bottles.
Welp, this post might have just saved my life. I had no idea, and a heart condition.
That’s insane. I hope not only that they win the lawsuit, but that companies understand stimulants can be harder (even dangerous) on some people.
The way caffeine affects me does not risk my life, but it can get ugly as I have a mental health condition that gets triggered by stimulants. It is so common to rely on caffeine nowadays, and it’s present in many beverages and snacks. People forget it is still a drug.
There should be labels and there should be less of a presence of caffeine (and other legal drugs) in unrelated products. I mean, it’s normal if coffee has caffeine, it shouldn’t be normal that a lemonade has caffeine.
There should be labels and there should be less of a presence of caffeine (and other legal drugs) in unrelated products. I mean, it’s normal if coffee has caffeine, it shouldn’t be normal that a lemonade has caffeine.
I disagree. Don’t get me wrong - fuck Panera in general, but I’m all for more products being offered so long as they’re properly labeled which this was. Also with a name like charged lemonade it heavily omplies it’s not normal lemonade. There’s an argument to be made here about personal responsibilities and reading labels.
Charged lemonadw to me would indicate extra sweet not cat piss gaurana.
Well you should probably read what’s in it then if you’re not sure lol.
Then look at the label and see that it says its caffeine content, as well as comparing it to coffee
Like, other than not selling it at all, there’s not much else they could’ve done here
Yeah it’s a tragic story, but I don’t think Panera is at fault here. What I would like for them to do is update their signage to be even more specific as a result of this. There’s no legal requirement to, and I don’t think a court will find them liable, but no matter how you spin it, this was an absolute tragedy for the girl and her family. Caffeine overdose is an incredibly unpleasant feeling when you drink one more coffee than you should. The poor girl. It would be kind of Panera to make changes because of it.
Agreed. I mentioned this in another comment but I’m wondering if she was picking up an online order? The article was not clear about that, but it would certainly be a different story if the lemonade wasn’t properly labeled on the online menu
Very true
The beverage contains 390mg, which is equivalent to 6.5 cups of coffee. I hope this will be used as a case study for other businesses on how to properly label your drinks and further increase transparancy about ingredients used in beverages.
6.5 thimble-sized cups. Compare to an average large coffee (431mg/20oz from Dunkin), or to the average amount consumed by coffee drinkers (~200mg for adults on average, with the 90th percentile being 300-400mg depending on the age group).
This touches on yet another conflating factor. The personal tolerance to caffeine varies wildly from person to person. Some can’t have even one cup a day, while others will down an entire pot and just shrug.
This is an absolute tragedy, but Panera is not legally liable. They should however respect her death by improving their signage and giving much more information. A warning that high consumption can be fatal with rare, unknown conditions seems appropriate.
Yeah, I agree. “As much caffeine as our coffee” should be replaced with an explicit number in milligrams and be presented in a standardized label format. It’s important information.
Holy crap, just imagine if they accidentally got the mix ratio on the machine wrong and somebody got a higher concentration of syrup.
Panera needs to lose this lawsuit and they need to lose it really hard.
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8 months ago Food Theroy did agreat video on this. It’s very appropriately titled given the unfortunate circumstances. To say this drink was caffeineted is a major understatement, it was basically four and a half monsters in one cup.
Franky, it was reckless for Panera to make and sell this drink and they absolutely earned this lawsuit. There was pently of forewarning that the abnormally high caffeine content in this was dangerous for certain groups. Hope the family wins big, nothing will bring back their loved one but this could’ve been avoided with more clear nutrientional warnings.
f u panera
So are you saying “f u” to all coffee shops? Because I can (and often do) get a standard on-menu beverage with more caffeine than these larges without a single warning on it at Dunkin Donuts.
These lemonades are at least covered in “this has THIS much caffeine in it” advertising.
I don’t understand how it’s reckless to serve something that 99.99% of the population will never have any significant health problem with, even if they drank double or triple the amount this girl did.
Good lord. I drank like half a red bull once and felt like I was going to die… Why would anyone even want to consume that much…
I had a drop of redbull once and was raging for months. It’s strong stuff
I feel like Panera has lost its way after JAB bought it. This wouldn’t fly before and some of their menu items now are just pure excess.
Ever since “casual dining” became the buzzword for restaurant investors.
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Did you read the article?
"Katz had a heart condition called long QT syndrome type 1 and avoided energy drinks at the recommendation of her doctors, according to the filing.
was advertised as a “plant-based and clean” beverage that contained as much caffeine as the restaurant’s dark roast coffee, according to photos of both the menu and beverage dispensers in the store
also contained guarana
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I’ll take that as a no
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.
why is a quadruple monster sold at a place famous for their soup?
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.
The larger issue is that caffeine should be regulated to a higher degree than it is
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.
Even banning alcoholic energy drinks seems a bit too far
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.
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 comfortable with our current limitations on alcohol, personally…at least when they’re followed.
This new trend of soda that’s made of cane sugar and natural coloring is pretty stupid. It’s still a ton of calories and acid on your teeth. At Chipotle, cava, Panera, I’ll get sparkling water out of the Sprite tap and then flavor with a dash of whatever nu soda they have.
Panera, I feel, is 100% at fault here for trying to make soda and apparently ENERGY DRINKS seem innocuous and healthy.
"This new trend "
It’s not really new. It’s that the cane sugar sodas cost more to make, which means cost more to buy. You can taste the difference, but you have to actually care to be willing to pay the increased price.
Jones has always done it. Coca Cola used to release it “Mexican Coca Cola” in my area every few months at $3/bottle.
Isn’t all soda essentially just sugar and food coloring?
And water.
Y’all need water.
I said SPARKLING water
Lol
They way I learned Dr. Pepper has caffeine is a friend in high school with a similar undiagnosed condition dying after drinking one.
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I’m not sure where you live, but most of the sodas available here don’t have caffeine unless they’re colas. Fruit flavored sodas and root beers are almost never caffeinated, except for Mellow Yellow which I also learned too late that it had caffeine, as I grabbed one late at night and then couldn’t sleep.
It was less tragic than someone dying, but having it be a guessing game whether something has caffeine and how much is dangerous and it needs much clearer labels.
Of course, we really shouldn’t be drinking soda in the first place.
Energy drinks should be sold by prescription only.
