Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and died hours after she drank Panera’s Charged Lemonade, a large cup of which contains more caffeine than Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined.
All Panera Bread restaurants are now displaying “enhanced” disclosures about the restaurant chain’s highly caffeinated lemonade, a spokesperson said Saturday, following a lawsuit that was filed by the family of a young woman who died after drinking the beverage.
Monday’s lawsuit, which was first obtained by NBC News, alleges that Sarah Katz, an Ivy League student with a heart condition, died after she drank Panera’s Charged Lemonade last year.
A large Charged Lemonade contains 390 milligrams — nearly the 400-milligram daily maximum of caffeine that the Food and Drug Administration says healthy adults can safely consume.
wait wait a lady fucking died and they’re getting away with simply enhanced signs??
Well the FDA says the caffeine content is safe for an adult.
For an average healthy adult. That’s what the disclaimers are for, so that those who can’t tolerate it will know about it.
And yes, insufficient warnings should have pretty harsh penalties precisely for this reason
True. As for penalties, some pragmatism is needed lest you create another “everything causes cancer in California” joke.
A warning that’s applied to everything will be ignored by everyone.
Other people posted pictures of the dispensers. It said right on the sign how much caffeine is in it.
The FDA also says brominated vegetable oil is safe for human consumption
So, the FDA isn’t perfect, but they’re reversing their stance based on evidence.
https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/brominated-vegetable-oil-bvo
BVO is added to a food for a specific purpose and is regulated by the FDA as a direct food additive. BVO is allowed for use in a small amount, not to exceed 15 parts per million, in the U.S. as a stabilizer for fruit flavoring used in beverages.
The FDA is working on a proposed rule to amend our regulations to remove the authorization of the use of BVO as a food ingredient. For more information, see the unified agenda.
Thank Gebus for California.
Looks to me like it is safe in smaller doses?
🤷♂️
Putting up the sign now probably hurts them in a civil suit.
Model (USA) Rule of Evidence 407: Subsequent remedial measures are not admissible as evidence to prove negligence, culpable conduct, a defect in a product or its design, or a need for a warning or instruction.
But the court may admit this evidence for another purpose, such as impeachment or — if disputed — proving ownership, control, or the feasibility of precautionary measures
EDIT: I’m not looking up the contextualing comments that accompany the rule, but I will share what I remember from law school many years ago: this rule exists for public safety. You don’t want to penalize fixing a dangerous situation, regardless of the facts of any specific case.
This comment is completely correct. This rule would apply here.
But it does alleviate them from a second suit.
Maybe they genuinely don’t want anyone else to die
Well this is like, how you do not eat things you are allergic too.
Why not just call it lemonade coffee or lemonade energy drink? Lemonade is not suppose to have caffeine.
“Charged” is definitely not enough.
Could be charged with anything, like fruit flavor, extra sugar, suggested max daily doses of caffeine for healthy individuals, ya know, anything.
Boosted lol
Whatever it is called with that kind of caffeine content you warning label it with listing of exactly how much caffeine it has. Well maybe unless it is named literally “coffee” and is plain brewed coffee and at that brewed coffee with the normal levels of caffeine coffee contains.
Ones frappe, whippazino also better have needed labels in cases, since given all they mix how the heck one is to know what exactly is the contents. Oh this is extra special “angry frappe” with double squared shot expresso, so exactly how much caffeine is that dear seller per one glass? I just thought you put chili in it or something to make it “angry”, but has literally multiple times more caffeine content.
This is why all the energy drinks atleast where I live have the ever present “contains high amount of caffeine x mg/100ml”.
You sell something like that as counter served item with no packaging label to read, well now your menu list must contains at minimum highlights. Something like “our special drunk (HC)” and then somewhere on the menu there reads “HC means high in caffeine”. Then obviously at the counter must be a full labeling booklet of “here is our every product from the plainest brewed coffee to our jumbo mega sandwich and special brew beverage with full nutritional information and ingredients”
Just like one can’t sell say a pastry in cafe with nut creme filling with out having a big marker on all the menus “contains nuts, nut allergies bevare”. Since similarly nut allergic consuming nuts can be life threatening, well for some people consuming caffeine isn’t healthy and must be disclosed.
Whatever it is called with that kind of caffeine content you warning label it with listing of exactly how much caffeine it has.
They have always had signage directly on the dispenser with the caffeine content.
Problem is I don’t think the average person knows caffeine dosage. It should really say “As much caffeine as four coffees” or “a fuckload of caffeine” not “400mg caffeine”.
When you have health concerns like the girl did, these are things you really should be aware of on your own. Like I can’t have grapefruit juice because of the meds I take, but I don’t demand large signage on everything that might have some in it.
What it should say is “Contains 98% of the FDA’s daily recommended maximum caffeine dosage, do not drink other caffeinated beverages in the same day”
Sure, if you want to put that label on most coffees as well since the lemonade has the same caffeine per ml. Then you get to the point of having everything labeled so everyone will naturally ignore it.
Correction, 2/3 the caffeine per ml of most coffees.
It’s downright reasonable for a regular-driver beverage if you don’t have a heart problem.
“As much caffeine as four coffees”
They’d be sued in a heartbeat. It has less caffeine than a large iced coffee at the most popular chain in the US. It has as much caffeine as a medium ice coffee. Served in a cup the size of a large iced coffee. I’m sure they were very careful about being accused of the opposite of what happened.
It’s the same amount of caffeine as coffee has. It literally says it on the sign.
A regular cup of Cafe Blend Dark Roast Coffee at Panera, has 268 mg for a 20-oz cup.
Ok so it actually has less caffeine then because the lemonade has 260mg/20 fl oz. Are you looking at the calorie count by mistake? Either way, a 8mg difference isn’t that significant because different coffees will have variations in caffeine content along the same lines.
No he’s repeating the argument the family’s lawyer made. That a butt-fucking-massive megapint (sorry Depp) of this has more caffeine than a little cup of the lowest-caffeine-content hot coffee.
People are forgetting that she got a large, and if she knew it was caffeinated, they have no case and nobody should be bitching this “not nearly as strong as light-roast-coffee” beverage is on the mean streets with hard drugs like pop rocks and pez.
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It’s not coffee.
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“Energy” drinks don’t give you much energy.
I don’t think you should be picking the names for things.
Let me try: “Caffeinated lemonade”
Wow.
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This is a product made by Panera Bread? Lol I would not expect the store brand lemonade to be jacked on caffeine.
Probably some executive’s nephew or something invented it. Absolutely a stupid idea.
Nah caffeine is flavorless and addictive. You mix it in with water and a patented combination of flavors and corn syrup, and the customers just keep coming back for it.
Selling an exclusive and addictive product is a good way to gain repeat customers.
Hell serious caffeine addicts will see this headline and plan to head to Panera at some point this week to check it out. No different than when heroin gets cut with fentanyl. Maybe somebody dies, but more junkies just want to chase that high.
I’ve always wondered why caffeine pills don’t do better if that’s the goal. I think it’s more about the drink, not caffeine.
It’s not flavorless, it’s bitter. You just can’t taste it over the pound of sugar.
That was my exact same thought. Like, I had no idea they had a caffeinated lemonade, let alone a lemonade that was a beverage version of an energy pill they sell behind the counter at the gas station.
They call it charged lemonade and they advertised it as being all natural and healthy too. Despite having more caffeine than their coffee or monster/red bull
It’s the same as their coffee. Same as the dark roast, anyway, and less caffeine per ounce than the light roast.
My kids went and filled their cups with this stuff before I noticed what it was and then had to be the bad guy, telling them to get the Minute Maid shite. Definitely lowered my opinion of Panera.
Is the stuff just in the soda fountain?
Separate dispensers like they said, but if you’re paying the meal and you tell the kids to go get their drinks and they want lemonade you have to watch out they don’t get the heart attack shit. Once you know you know, but I couldn’t believe that’s a thing that exists.
I’m shocked it took this long. The caffeine content in that shit is MIND BLOWING. When you buy a energy drink you know what you are signing up for. But a lemonade with 260 to 390mg of caffeine??? That’s pushing the limit of a
healthysafe daily dose for an average adultWhy the fuck would lemonade of all things have caffeine anyway?
Because it’s called ‘Charged Lemonade’.
Charged, like the thing that you do to your phone to put energy into it.
Mike’s hard lemonade exists… Has alcohol in it.
Because someone made it and people buy it?
Why shouldn’t lemonade have caffeine? Because you think it shouldn’t? Lol.
That’s about the same as a large coffee, but nobody blinks an eye at that. https://www.cspinet.org/caffeine-chart
Because then people know what they’re getting. That’s why. She wouldn’t have bought a large coffee like that
That’s why you use your eyes and read the sign that clearly states “as much caffeine as our dark roast”.
Nah even that source shows most coffees are 100ish mg
It absolutely does not. 100mg per what? They list different quantities of each drink on that source. If you look at it from a mg/fl-oz perspective, you’ll see that the lemonades are on par with coffee.
Holy shit yeah actually. That’s a huge fucking coffee is it not? I mean 20 oz is huge.
https://cacmap.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-beans-how-much-caffeine-too-much
8 oz to 10 oz is what I would expect a cup of coffee to be. FDA estimates 100ish for an 8 oz. I had no idea Starbucks served giant ass coffees like that lmfao
20oz is pretty standard from what I’ve seen for large hot coffees. I believe that the dunkin large iced coffees are like 30oz(while hot is 20). Relatively standard sizes in the US tbh.
Ain’t Nothin healthy about that lol
Lol. Fixed now.
It’s more than a litre of red bull in one drink.
Wild lemonade leaves woman very excited lol 😆
What is going to come from this is Panera settles, and then sticks the charged lemonade behind the counter and enhances warning labels.
What may indirectly come from this is Solid Numbers on Caffeine overdose. and what is a safe amount and what is playing with fire.
It’s a modern day created problem. energy drinks flood the market, other companies compete and boom, someone died. I’ve seen reports that she had some medical issues and caffeine was like her version of a bee sting or peanut allergy , but I’ve yet to corroborate that narrative.
Funny. We’ve actually been doing the same thing with salt and sugar for decades.
But overconsuming those doesn’t usually result in an immediate death. Just diabetes and stroke.
Yes, prior reporting covered that she had a heart condition and she was extremely aware that too much caffeine would kill her. The lemonade was clearly labeled with its caffeine content. It didn’t say it was extreme, but it was clearly labeled with how much is in it. The story that “she didn’t know” doesn’t add up unless she was just being wildly negligent.
Article with image of the labeling: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/10/24/paneras-caffeinated-charged-lemonade-blamed-for-college-students-death-in-lawsuit/amp/
As someone with a food allergy, I check everything I eat for my allergens. If I’m not sure what’s in it, I don’t eat it. And all that will happen to me is I’ll feel ill for a while. Anyone with a lethal condition damn well knows better.
I’m sure a lot of people don’t know off the top of there head what is and is not a lot of caffeine.
People with caffeine sensitivity probably do.
I’m sure a lot of people don’t know off the top of there head what is and is not a lot of caffeine.
“As much caffeine as our coffee” She was sucking down 30oz cups of it (still under the FDA safe limit) on multiple days, and her family’s claim is that she thought it wasn’t caffeinated at all.
The one possible claim is that in SOME stores the signage was missing for various reasons. That doesn’t seem to be the case with her store.
their*
You failing basic grammar should tell you that your opinion on this (and other things) is worth nothing.
Lol, obvious troll.
Blocked.
I figured it had more caffeine than tea but less than coffee. Clearly very wrong. Glad I didn’t drink this stuff while I was pregnant.
Is this lawsuit gonna drive the price of sandwiches from $15 to $30? /s
They’ll just make their bread even more stale and give you even smaller sandwiches for the exorbitant price.
Now the sales for that drink is going to go up, due to human curiosity.
I definitely want some caffeinated lemonade
There’s caffeinated lemonade and then there’s ‘10 mg away from the maximum daily recommendation of caffeine’ lemonade.
You can order a smaller size if you’re worried. The lemonade isn’t particularly highly caffeinated, it’s the cup size that is excessive. The lemonade is 13mg/oz, an average coffee is 12mg/oz which means a lot of coffees are higher, such as Starbucks coffee at 20mg/oz. Espresso is 50 and “energy shots” ten times that.
I definitely think labeling should be more explicit on presence of caffeine across the board (not just tiny text on a container). A limitation of size to 16oz (half the current size, same as a grande at SB) would also avoid the “supersize” effect here. But the lemonade itself isn’t really the issue imo.
So get a medium instead of a large?
Problem is that stuff seems to be more lemonated caffeine than caffeinated lemonade.
Fuck me…
I was just thinking I wanted to try some Charged Lemonade.
Who’d have thought a place that can’t even make a bagel with cream cheese properly would be the one to turbo-charge the lemonade.
Seriously, once I decided to get one and they gave me an uncut bagel and little shitty single-serve cream cheese. Even I asked wtf and said I wanted it done they looked at me as if I were from friggin outer space.
Pretty sure it’s normal to put your own cream cheese on… But it would have been nice if they’d at least cut the bagel, I guess.
I don’t think the two are related, at all.
400 mg a day?
Apparently I should be dead.
Same boat. I easily drink a pot a day. Been thinking I should try and cut back, but maybe this is the push I need.
I’d like to point out the irony that these enhanced warnings are a tiny sign that will easily be missed if you ignore the MASSIVE signage and marketing that remind the consumer that the beverages are caffeinated.
The silly part is that “see, it’s a WAaaaarrrrning” might hold more protective weight in court than “HEY LOOK WE GOT A FUCKTON OF CAFFEINE” billboards.
(not so) fun fact: they put it where they normally place non caffeinated drinks
I wonder how the doctors knew that she had this lemonade and pinned it as the sole cause of her death vs anything else that could have caused it or as a combination of things since she had a condition already - the legal discussion of this in the lawsuit could be very relevant for panera
She knew she had the condition and avoided high caffeine drinks.
She did not know about the caffeine content, 390mg in the large lemonade, due to poor labeling by Panera. This one drink is 10mg less than the maximum daily dose for HEALTHY person according to the FDA.
Given the lack of consuming any other caffeine products regularly due to her knowing about their impact on her heart, it is not a leap to say the lemonade was the culprit.
Further, the lawsuit alleges harm, even if not the sole cause of death, from their product due to not making it clear to the buyer that contents has so much caffeine.
According to coffeechemistry.com, one liquid ounce of espresso can have anywhere between 30 and 50mg of caffeine. That means that a double shot will likely have anywhere between 60 and 100mg.
She bought a lemonade, without caffeine labeling, that contained 8 shots of espresso in caffeine. Cause of death or not, the legal culpability and reasonable expectation that this would not be in its contents is clear as day.
This will never go to trial.
I know nothing about this lawsuit but if she ordered this from a delivery app then there would be zero indication during purchasing that it is caffeinated
due to poor labeling by Panera
Having seen the labeling, I would say it’s the opposite of poor. They’re far more focused on the caffeine in this lemonade than I would have expected on first reading the story.
Either signage was missing, or she did the food equivalent of driving the wrong way up a one-way because she was texting.
This is the point.
The location.
In question.
Did not.
Properly label.
The contents.
This will be a shock to some of you, but the practices of a multimillion dollar franchise across many states can in fact have deviation at one location. People’s experience at locations since the event, at locations other than where it occurred, is not a sum guarantee of what happened at the time of this incident and location.
This is the point.
The location.
In question.
Did not.
Properly label.
The contents.
Got any info that points to that? All the articles I’ve read complain that the standard signage isn’t clear enough and that “as much caffeine as dark coffee” is somehow misleading.
People’s experience at locations since the event, at locations other than where it occurred, is not a sum guarantee of what happened at the time of this incident and location.
I agree. I’ve been reading the complaints. They do have standard marketing for this, and the articles are attacking that standard marketing, not saying it was missing.
Somehow?
A dark coffee has up to ~40 mg of caffeine.
This was nearly 400.
I would say being off by 10X is pretty fucking misleading.
I get it now. You really don’t know much about caffeine or coffee, huh? Keep an open mind and read my reply carefully.
A dark coffee has up to ~40 mg of caffeine.
An 8oz Dark Roast coffee is approximately 100mg of caffeine. The same sized light roast coffee is closer to 150mg of caffeine. Panera’s smallest dark roast is 214mg of caffeine. ~40mg is a 4oz half-cup of lowish-caffeine coffee.
This was nearly 400.
Have you ever seen or held a 30oz cup in your hand? It’s freaking massive. In US terms, it’s a QUART. In rest-of-the-world terms, it’s almost a liter. Every beverage a fast food joint sells is unhealthy at that size (probably including their local filtered water). But the ONE ingredient that isn’t unhealthy in all that is the caffeine! The sugar or sweeteners are the real villains there. 400mg of caffeine for 30oz is simply not excessive. Is it a good amount? Sure. It’s about 2/3 as strong as coffee. You shouldn’t treat it as a caffeine-free beverage. Obviously.
I would say being off by 10X is pretty fucking misleading.
Per Panera’s own nutritional info, this 30oz caffeinated lemonade has about the same total caffeine as a large 20oz hot coffee (which is TINY for a large in the US, but you get free refills as Panera). You’re comparing a 30oz caffeinated lemonade to a 4oz half-cup of lower-caffeine coffee. But as I said, I think it’s ignorance and not bad faith.
So hopefully I’ve just educated you.
I saw a picture of the lemonade dispenser herw and the caffeine content was shown quite clearly
The caffeine content was on the label but rather small for such an extreme amount. Additionally, it was not put in relation to anything for 2 of the 3 lemonades, they only wrote the coffeine content in milligram, very few people can relate to this information without looking it other drinks.
For one of them, it claimed to be in similar strength as their coffee, which was a lie according to the lawsuit, as their coffee has “normal” coffeine content.
It’s not a lie. 30oz of the lemonade has as much caffeine as 30oz of their dark roast coffee. That’s a lot of coffee.
I have rechecked the image and the coffee comparison was for 2 out of 3.
You are right, that the concentration of the caffeine was as high as it is in a normal cup of coffee. But the caffeine content was given as an absolute value not as a concentration, so it was misleading. But you are right, it was not a lie.
Their text can be easily interpreted as an comparisons of the large or small lemonade with a large or small cup of coffee. Which is not an unreasonable thought, as 30 oz of Cola has roughly the same amount of coffeine (83 mg) as 1 cup of coffee (96 mg, according to Mayo Clinic).
“As much as our dark roast coffee” isn’t an absolute value, but I think there really should be a sticker saying “Warning: high caffeine content / approx (x mg small) (y mg med) (390mg large)”. This sticker should appear clearly next to the menu items as well as on the cups. Self-serve stations should probably be removed since kids are vastly more likely to drink a ton of lemonade compared to hot, black coffee.
I drank a few of these not sure if it was “as much as a regular coffee” or “as much as an equivalent size.” I didn’t think twice because I take a lot of caffeine anyway, but I shouldn’t have had to google it.
I can see how depending on the circumstances of obtaining the drink, one might not know there is caffeine in it at all:
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ordering from a third party online app that doesn’t have all the right names, descriptions, and pictures
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ordering through a third party proxy or having the item described to you by a third party (“anyone want anything? They have lemonade…”)
There really should be a clear notice right on the thing you’re about to drink from, of exactly how much caffeine is in it. No marketing crap (“it’s charged!”) or vague comparisons (“as much as our coffee”) suffices.
How about a giant sign that says “390mg large” that everyone is just complaining that “how could she know that 390mg was too much”? Because it does actually have the number 390mg on the sign attached to the machine.
The funny thing in this case is that many people replying to this about what Panera should have done are naming things that Panera had already done in this case.
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200mg of caffeine makes me feel ill. 390mg in a lemonade is insane. wtf
