Panera has been selling some sort of lemonade with a ton of caffeine, and there have been a couple of news stories recently about it killing people.
It sounds like people aren’t aware that “charged lemonade” has caffeine at all when they order it. Or maybe they realize it but aren’t expecting 260-390mg.
Holy fuck where has this lemonade been my whole life???!?!?!
If you never see me post again, tell my mom I loved her!
“This lemonade has been actively killing people with caffeine overdose”
@rug_burn : man I gotta get me some of this stuff
Fck. That seems like it’s way more than your typical energy drink that’s off the charts too.
I would love to know how that product development meeting went. "Hey people, we have this idea, think lemonade and coffee, but like 10 cups of coffee in a single lemonade.
It’s like being kicked in the chest by a horse. It could kill some people and open us up to litigation, but man are the sales going to be way up there too!"
Part of it also is that Panera didn’t clearly market it as caffeinated. The only indication that it was caffeinated was that it was marketed as “charged lemonade.” You could go to their website, and the website says it’s caffeinated, but the website only says that it contains the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee (which is markedly untrue).
It was only after the media started reporting on the deaths that Panera started saying that it was an energy drink. In other words, Panera is entirely at fault for those deaths.
It’s like one cup of coffee in a single lemonade. If you get the extra large, it’s like one extra large cup of coffee in a single extra large lemonade. The actual amount of caffeine is hardly the issue, just the fact that people are way less likely to understand how much caffeine they’re getting from lemonade compared to coffee.
For anyone concerned about their beverages. Following is a table of Recommended maximum daily intake of caffeine according to different age groups & categories: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutrition/food-safety/food-additives/caffeine-foods.html
FDA’s recommendations: https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-beans-how-much-caffeine-too-much
For measure: 8 oz (227 g) of Coffee has 80-100 mg of caffeine or 35-45 mg of Caffeine per 100 g of Coffee. (Average, numbers may vary accordingly.)
This drink only has like 40mg more caffeine than the same volume of coffee.
I think at least one case where a death occured they had like 3 or 4 of them
Keeping in mind that till recently it was common for the lemonade to be available where people could get their own refills. Also containing guarana, not as many people (including myself) would immediately recognize it as a simulant or have some kind of reference to their personal tolerance for intake.
"Brown, 46, had an unspecified chromosomal deficiency disorder, a developmental delay and a mild intellectual disability. He lived independently, frequently stopping at Panera after his shifts at a supermarket, the legal complaint says. Because he had high blood pressure, he did not consume energy drinks, it adds.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Brown’s mother, sister and brother less than two months after Panera was hit with a separate lawsuit regarding Sarah Katz, an Ivy League student with a heart condition who died in September 2022 after she drank a Charged Lemonade. That lawsuit, first reported by NBC News, called the beverage a “dangerous energy drink” and argued that Panera failed to appropriately warn consumers about its ingredients, which include the stimulant guarana extract.
Panera has advertised its Charged Lemonade as “Plant-based and Clean with as much caffeine as our Dark Roast coffee.” At 390 milligrams of caffeine, a large, 30-fluid-ounce Charged Lemonade has more caffeine in total than any size of Panera’s dark roast coffee, the legal complaints say. The large cup contains more than the caffeine content of standard cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, plus the equivalent of nearly 30 teaspoons of sugar, the complaints say."
And known health issues that are negatively affected by stimulants.
It’s like trying to blame coke or Pepsi because a diabetic died after drinking almost a gallon of soda.
The difference is it was marketed as soda, not as a caffeinated drink, so it’s a little more nuanced than that. See Legal Eagle’s video on the topic, it’s quite a good breakdown of the situation.
There was a coffee shop in Canada apparently selling an off-menu “nurse special” or something like that, was like 8 espresso shots or something ridiculous meant to be consumed over the course of a 12 hour shift. Caused some issues with people but seems like the article disappeared.
The caffeine content was literally listed on the drink’s nametag taking up like 1/4 of the tag.
One of the guys who died drank 90oz of the stuff and had known blood pressure issues. Panera isn’t at fault here.
Calling it Lemonade might prove to be a problem because there’s an understood meaning for the word lemonade that doesn’t involve caffeine. They could have marketed it as lemon-flavored but calling it lemonade and putting it next to the regular lemonade could be construed as them trying to hide the caffeine content from consumers.
So what if the content was listed. That’s far from their only legal obligation
What legal obligation do they have? Do you expect fast food employees to monitor the caffeine intake of their customers? Should they be required to take the customer’s blood pressure before serving them?
These are adults who made a decision to drink (to excess) a beverage whose name and signage indicate a high caffeine content.
