Lawsuits have blamed the highly caffeinated drink for at least two deaths.
A Panera Bread spokesperson says the restaurant chain is phasing out its Charged Lemonade, a highly caffeinated beverage that has been blamed for at least two deaths in lawsuits.
The beverages prompted controversy in October following a lawsuit filed by the family of 21-year-old Sarah Katz, a University of Pennsylvania student with a heart condition who died after consuming Charged Lemonade. A second lawsuit was filed in December by the family of Dennis Brown, a Florida man with a chromosomal deficiency disorder and a developmental delay who also died after drinking a Charged Lemonade.
A third lawsuit was filed in January by Lauren Skerritt, a 28-year-old Rhode Island woman, which claimed the beverage left her with “permanent cardiac injuries.”
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Panera previously advertised its Charged Lemonade as “Plant-based and Clean with as much caffeine as our Dark Roast coffee.” But the lawsuits said that at 390 milligrams, a large, 30-fluid-ounce Charged Lemonade has more caffeine in total than any size of Panera’s dark roast coffee, referring to the amount of caffeine that is in the drink with no ice. Panera has since updated its nutrition information to reflect how much caffeine is in the Charged Lemonade with ice, listing the large size of the blood orange Charged Lemonade, for example, as having 302 milligrams.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, healthy adults can generally safely consume 400 milligrams of caffeine a day.
It was a bizarre thing. Energy drinks are at least marketed as having extreme amounts of caffeine, but this has more, is sold at a bread store, and the caffeine is intentionally downplayed.
Aye, that’s the weirdest part. Panera is like the basic mom place, coffee and bagels and sandwiches. Seems like a demographic mismatch, and not being blatent about the caffeine intake literally got people killed.
Point is, shouldn’t have been a thing and should have gone away sooner.
Right? Like I feel like it’s already run its entire promotional campaign course and they’re announcing this just because they’re “done with it” (for now at least. Who knows about next year).
Like it’s been the 4-6 months or however long they originally planned it for and are just finishing up the cycle.
panera turned multiple accidental deaths into a marketing stunt to sell more lemonade. They should burn.
What this article doesn’t say is that it’s being replaced with an endless refill Four Loko original recipe fountain.
Cowards. Bring back the heart attack juice
I used to have the drink plan thing, because a year of it came as a perk/promo on a credit card we have. I called it “artisanal red bull” and I had to be careful with how fast I drank it. I’ve only got the uncontrollable jitters twice. Once when I didn’t realize that a coffee shop doing big-assed iced coffees was just sugaring their coffee and adding a couple ounces of cream, not adding any particularly large amount of milk.
Then with the charged lemonade. I knew it had caffeine, a lot even, but I didn’t do the math and assumed it was like a little more than mountain dew or something.
I was mistaken. I saw my ancestors in the vibrations of the universe strings.
I went back the next day.
It isn’t so bad if you don’t drink it all at once
Why do they keep bringing out these drinks that are so over caffeinated? They never learn their lesson until people start dying.
It wasn’t any more caffeinated than their coffee, but they make them because people buy them. Caffeine addiction is a real thing, and other stimulants are heavily regulated.
Panera previously advertised its Charged Lemonade as “Plant-based and Clean with as much caffeine as our Dark Roast coffee.” But the lawsuits said that at 390 milligrams, a large, 30-fluid-ounce Charged Lemonade has more caffeine in total than any size of Panera’s dark roast coffee, referring to the amount of caffeine that is in the drink with no ice.
I’m not aware of that advertising. Dark roast coffee does have less caffeine than light roast, though; their 20oz light roast has 384mg caffeine.
Did they measure that caffeine content independently? Because the published values state between 210 and 236 mg for a 30oz charged lemonade, depending on flavor.
The article states they changed the caffeine amount since the lawsuit
because people buy them. especially kids.
look at death water. it’s like $5 a bottle and it’s super popular.
Liquid Death isn’t even caffeinated. They have a line of iced teas that have caffeine from the tea but their main flavors are all water or seltzer.
Do you mean Liquid Death? That is just water and it’s not caffeinated.
Water plus a bit of fragrance so you can smell something while drinking water.
They’re pretty refreshing in my experience. I actually recommend Liquid Death.
They should sell a canned version and call it “Killer Lemonade”
Come play the lemonade roulette!
People are already dieing in the store, where they can administer first ade!
Just have the same lemonade with no caffeine added. It was delicious
Me and some of my buddies went to go try it. Disappointing. I was expecting to be able to say something cool like “I can hear colors” instead it was just an energy drink.
Charged Lemonade tasted like crap anyway. Good riddance.
Panera’s regular Lemonade and regular sweetened Green Tea tastes great. So I’m still overall happy with their drink options. But whoever the chef was who created this “Charged Lemonade” stuff needs to be fired.
Killer.
Ughh, yet another case of the few ruining it for the rest :/
First they reduced it to <300 on the caffeine and put signs literally everywhere about it. But apparently people still can’t read
You can just buy powdered caffeine, its cheap.
Or just take pills if you need it that bad. But that might be a sign you need to cut back really.
I wouldn’t call taking lemonade made from concentrated sugary syrup and filled with caffeine in a place that touts itself selling things like ciabatta sandwiches and “healthy” salads off the menu ruining it for anyone except maybe you.
