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.
