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Panera adds warnings about caffeinated lemonade after suit over student’s death

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/29/panera-bread-charged-lemonade-student-death

Family sued after Sarah Katz died last year after drinking Charged Lemonade, apparently unaware of soda’s high caffeine content

Panera adds warnings about caffeinated lemonade after suit over student’s death

Family sued after Sarah Katz died last year after drinking Charged Lemonade, apparently unaware of soda’s high caffeine content

56 comments

Drusas

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It's worth noting that the lemonade already had signs clearly stating the caffeine content.

Salamendacious

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Some stores had the lemonade behind the counter that obscured the signs.

SheeEttin

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Looks like they have had "as much caffeine as our dark roast coffee" on the big menu boards for months.

https://www.nj.com/hudson/2023/10/college-student-from-nj-dies-after-drinking-panera-charged-lemonade-lawsuit-says.html

https://gwradio.com/potentially-dangerous-levels-of-caffeine-in-panera-lemonades/

Salamendacious

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What if she asked the cashier, "do you have lemonade?" And the cashier said, "yes." And then she ordered a lemonade. If you went to a restaurant and ordered a lemonade would you expect it to have 390 mg of caffeine added to it?

wreckedcarzz

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Counter-point: It is the duty of the person to know what they are consuming, though, not the other way around. If we gave every customer at every restaurant a full encyclopedia of what, how, where etc everything that goes into their product, 'fast food' would serve like 50 customers a day.

People need to educate themselves, especially when things are going into their bodies. Same as stepping into a street blindly and assuming 'this cannot possibly hurt me'.

Salamendacious

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I think that there are some items that have become rather established. I feel like I should be able to go to any restaurant in the English speaking world, order a BLT, and know exactly what I'm getting without having to look at a menu. If they handed me a bologna, leek, and turnip sandwich I'd be a little miffed.

From time immemorial lemonade has been lemons, sugar, and water. I just can't blame someone for ordering a lemonade and expecting to get lemons, sugar, and water.

I want you to understand that I 100% get where you're coming from though. Ultimately this will go to court and a jury will be presented all the evidence, which we may not have, and they'll render a verdict.

starman2112

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There's nuance, right? Like, it's on you to know that beer has alcohol in it. It's reasonable to assume that hard cider that's sold alongside beer and liquor will have alcohol. It's also reasonable to assume that the seltzer that's sold near the rest of the seltzer doesn't have alcohol in it. But if it says it's "hard" seltzer, there's an argument to be made that you've been warned that this seltzer is alcoholic.

But "charged" is not a standard term to denote caffeine, and this lemonade is not nestled between coffee dispensers. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that the lemonade that you order doesn't have caffeine, because lemonade doesn't normally have caffeine. If you ordered a root beer and got something with alcohol in it, would you say the same thing about being aware of what you're consuming?

wreckedcarzz

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But this isn't just 'lemonade', and the fact that it is not advertised nor sold as just 'lemonade' should clue people in. If I offered a meal as the 'shotgun burger', would you not stop to think 'huh, I wonder what that's about' before consuming it?

starman2112

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This shit looks like lemonade to me. If I'm not specifically looking for the calorie content, I'm gonna filter out that caffeine content just like everyone else. A few hours later when I get the jitters, I'm never gonna be able to trace it back to that small yellow text on a green sign that I didn't read because I'm not avoiding calories.

To your other point. I probably wouldn't question it, because burgers typically don't have alcohol or caffeine in them. Here's a better comparison: you go to a restaurant you're unfamiliar with and order the "Jacked BLT." Does that sound like a marketing word, or a description of what comes on the sandwich? Because I would bet most people would order that sandwich expecting bacon, lettuce, tomato. I expect most people wouldn't expect six scoops of vanilla protein powder, even if it says it comes with that in the fine print next to the nutritional information.

ABCDE

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Yes, but I wouldn't expect it to be x amount more than coffee if I noticed the caffeine part, as the numbers don't mean anything to the layman.

stopthatgirl7

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Yeah but

One large 30 fl oz Panera Charged Lemonade contains 390 milligrams (mg) of caffeine. If that sounds like a lot, that’s probably because—at least by the standards of commercial beverages—it very much is. For reference, a cup of coffee typically contains somewhere in the ballpark of 90 mg. Consuming the same volume of Red Bull, 30 fl oz, would equal only 278 mg of caffeine.

Unless their dark roast coffee was listed as having 390 mg of caffeine in it, no one seeing that sign would be expecting that much caffeine.

halcyoncmdr

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A cup of coffee doesn't have 390mg of caffeine, but a cup of the charged lemonade doesn't either. The 390mg figure is for a large, which is 30 ounces, equivalent to about 4 cups of coffee, which is in the same general ballpark for caffeine content depending on the type of coffee and how it is brewed.

They're using the 390mg figure because it sounds scary without putting it directly into context. They are relying on the reader not doing any math to see of that is actually an outrageous number which it isn't.

starman2112

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The difference is that a reasonable person knows that 30 oz of coffee is way too much coffee, and a reasonable person knows that 30 oz of lemonade is a normal amount of lemonade.

halcyoncmdr

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The already existing sign on the lemonade said it had caffeine equivalent to a cup of coffee, before the death and lawsuit. It doesn't take a leap of logic to recognize that even though it's lemonade that the caffeine is going to be high when drinking that much.

Starbucks also sells 30oz iced coffees, where is the lawsuit there? At what point do we admit that there is a personal responsibility to read and comprehend a sign?

starman2112

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It's not really that clearly labeled. It's only really noticeable if you're looking for caffeine or calorie content, but virtually everyone who isn't specifically counting their calories will filter that text out just like you and I do. If there was reason to look out for caffeine in lemonade, you'd have an extremely good point, but I'm gonna go ahead and shout this at the top of my lungs:

LEMONADE DOESN'T NORMALLY HAVE CAFFEINE.

There is absolutely no damn reason to expect someone to look out for the caffeine content of lemonade. It's like telling someone to watch out for all the alcohol in their sprite. You would not expect this lemonade to have caffeine in it if you walked up to the dispenser and filled up a large cup with it, unless you're anal about calorie intake.

As I've said, a reasonable person understands that 30 oz of coffee is too much coffee, and 30 oz of lemonade is a normal amount of lemonade. Before you learned about this news story, the idea of 30 oz of lemonade having more caffeine in it than a red bull and a monster put together would never have crossed your mind.

ryathal

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Starbucks doesn't sell coffee. They sell coffee themed drinks with lots of sugar and cream/milk.

ryathal

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It's actually 6 cups of coffee. Coffee is typically 6oz cups for a serving.

Hawke

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[…] a cup of coffee typically contains somewhere in the ballpark of 90 mg. Consuming the same volume of Red Bull, 30 fl oz[…]

Wait, a cup of coffee is defined as 30 fl oz?

SheeEttin

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No, one cup is eight ounces.

But anyone saying "a cup of coffee" is being intentionally deceptive. Do they actually mean one cup, eight ounces, or do they mean "a cup of coffee", which is often at least 10oz? Personally, when I say "a cup of coffee", usually it's a 12oz mug, but could be a 16oz cup if I'm getting it from somewhere.

JAC

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And the funny part, is that coffee makers usually deem a cup of coffee as 5oz rather than the normal 8. Not sure if that plays into this, but it's why you can get 12 or 14 cups out of such a small carafe.

SheeEttin

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https://www.panerabread.com/content/dam/panerabread/documents/c4-beverage-caffeine-guide.pdf

Cafe Blend Dark Roast Coffee, 13.4 mg caffeine per oz, so the equivalent 30 oz dark roast coffee would have 402 mg caffeine. And dark roasts are actually less caffeinated than light; light roast has 19.2 mg/oz, or 576 mg in a 30 oz.

But regardless of actual number, someone with caffeine sensitivity should see "as much caffeine as dark roast coffee" and at least consider whether that's appropriate for them (and for most, the appropriate amount of coffee is zero).

themeatbridge

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Well that's the point, isn't it? What if they didn't see the sign about the lemonade being hyper caffeinated? Why would you even look for a sign warning you about the caffeine content in lemonade?

Also, 30 oz is a lot of coffee. That's one and a half times the largest Starbucks coffee. That's a shitload of caffeine for a beverage that never has caffeine in it in any other restaurant or store anywhere.

SheeEttin

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I don't know. The full story will probably come out at trial.

I wouldn't say 30oz is a lot of coffee, though. It's less than two 16oz cups. A bit much for one person in a short period of time, but not unheard of. And the largest Starbucks size is actually a trenta, at 31oz.

themeatbridge

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Starbucks only sells cold drinks in trenta sizes, where the ice and/or milk is going to be a third of the volume. You can't get a 31 oz hot coffee. You are correct, you could buy two 16 oz coffees and get as much caffeine as Panera puts into their large lemonade, but if you ordered two 16 oz coffees, you know you're drinking two 16 oz coffees. The whole point of this lawsuit is that someone with a heart condition never expected lemonade to be jazzed to the tits with caffeine, and they died because of it.

Signs are only effective if people read them, and there's no reason anyone would bother to look for a warning sign on their lemonade. It's lemonade. Lemons, sugar, water, the simplest and most innocuous of all beverages. It's exactly what someone with a heart condition should feel comfortable ordering at any restaurant.

You can't trust orange soda or root beer or even seltzer because some brands are caffeinated, but lemonade is always safe. Except at Panera, where it has the caffeine of two energy drinks, enough to kill someone with a heart condition, because...

ryven

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I think it's "as much" per fluid ounce. A cup of coffee is like 8 ounces, so the 30 ounce large lemonade is like almost 4 cups of coffee, which is in the right ballpark.

Since the lemonade comes in two sizes, this is the only way the comparison makes sense.

stopthatgirl7

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And in that case, this poor woman definitely wouldn’t have been expecting as much caffeine as she got. It said in one of the articles in the reply that she avoided energy drinks because of the caffeine. She likely has no idea there was so much caffeine in it.

ryven

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For sure, it would certainly be clearer to say "the large charged lemonade has about the same amount of caffeine as four cups of coffee."

I also just saw that a cup of coffee is less than 1 cup, so maybe it's actually closer to five cups of coffee. Either way, I agree they could have made the comparison more explicit.

Talking about heavily-caffeinated beverages reminds me of the time I tried to order a venti nitro cold brew at Starbucks, and the guy actually told me "I'm not supposed to sell you the nitro in venti, actually..." But I must have looked like I needed it, because he looked around to make sure his manager wasn't watching, poured me a venti, and rang it up as a grande!

stopthatgirl7

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This whole super has reminded me of the time I was given caffeine pills for migraines when I was only a few years younger than this woman, and they mistyped the dosage on the instructions. I did not end up in the hospital only because my heart wasn’t quiiiiite beating fast enough for the university health center to call an ambulance, but it was close. They still had me stay there at the health center so they could keep an eye on me for a few hours just in case. I mostly remember lying on a bed watching my hands shaking uncontrollably and feeling my heart pounding in my chest. It was not a fun experience.

subignition

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Yeah it's unfortunately not a very well known fact that drip coffee typically has a MUCH higher caffeine content than e.g. espresso drinks.

stopthatgirl7

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Googling tells me drop coffee has 60-125 mg per cup, which is much less than the 390 mg this drink had. She was probably expecting at most 125mg in the drink.

SheeEttin

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That 390 mg is in 30 oz, but your 60-125 mg per cup is per 8 oz (8oz = 1c). The lemonade is 13 mg/oz, while your coffee would be 7.5-15.6 mg/oz. The lemonade has the same amount of caffeine as coffee, just like their menu boards state.

stopthatgirl7

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Same as I said in another reply: The thing is, most people are not going to be calculating by amounts like that. If you see a drink labeled as having as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, most folks are going to the serving size you are getting has the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, not that it has the same amount of caffeine per fluid ounce - that the 30 oz lemonade has the same amount of caffeine as a 8 oz cup of coffee. I know that’s what I would have assumed based on the picture of the display in the article. Panera needed to have stated very clearly how they were measuring this - one of the linked articles said the woman never even drank energy drinks, so I bet you money she wouldn’t have ordered this had it been labeled more clearly exactly how much caffeine was in.

subignition

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A "cup" of coffee is typically an 8 oz serving. You need to look at it per volume to make an accurate comparison.

https://www.caffeineinformer.com/the-caffeine-database

In mg/fl oz:

Coca Cola is 2.8 (Diet Coke 3.8)
Mountain Dew is 4.5
McDonald's drip is 9.1
Red Bull is 9.5
Charged Lemonade is 13
Tim Hortons brewed coffee is 13.5
Chick-Fil-A brewed coffee is 13.6

So, this lemonade isn't actually that far away from comparable drip coffee, however, I am not sure whether the nutrition facts on the 30 oz charged lemonade is going to be inclusive of ice or not. Fountain drinks typically assume a "standard" amount of ice in their calorie projections, or you will see a calorie range on their menu to accommodate the spectrum of "no ice" - "extra ice"; if the 390mg of caffeine that they give for a large charged lemonade is for a 30 fl oz with no ice at all, then a standard amount of ice could bring it down into a more reasonable territory, but...

stopthatgirl7

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The thing is, and something I think folks aren’t figuring, is that most people are not going to be calculating by amounts like that. If you see a drink labeled as having as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, most folks are going to the serving size you are getting has the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, not that it has the same amount of caffeine per fluid ounce - that the 30 oz lemonade has the same amount of caffeine as a 8 oz cup of coffee.

Duamerthrax

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They should add warnings about the salt content of their food.

Salamendacious

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Pretty much every restaurant & food prep company would be doing humanity a kindness by reducing the amount of salt they put in their food

starman2112

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People who need to monitor their salt intake typically check the nutrition facts of the food they eat. People who need to monitor their caffeine intake have absolutely no damn reason to check how much caffeine is in their lemonade.

Hawke

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… aside from the fact that it’s explicitly caffeinated lemonade.

starman2112

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It's not really explicit though, is it? Everyone I've shown that picture to has been shocked that the 30 oz drink they would have gotten would have any caffeine, because deapite having a label, it is not clear enough for the average person to notice.

Hawke

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I feel like if I had a sensitivity to caffeine I’d be real suspicious of anything called “charged lemonade”

starman2112

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Again. Looking at the sign. What I see is three lemonade containers. They look exactly like every other lemonade container I've ever seen. I'm not reading the little text at the top or bottom, I'm reading "Mango Yuzu Citrus," "Strawberry Lemon Mint," and "Fuji Apple Cranberry," and I'm gonna fill up my 30 oz cup with that Fuji Apple Cranberry, because it sounds like a good flavor. I'm not gonna read the marketing fluff, and I suspect that the vast, vast majority of people, yourself included, would never think to, if the only information at our disposal is those signs.

But if you've already made up your mind about who was right and who was wrong, I can absolutely see you convincing yourself that of course she should have read the marketing fluff, despite the fact that she had no real reason to because lemonade doesn't typically have caffeine. This conversation will go absolutely nowhere because there's no way for me to convince you that A) it is normal to ignore the marketing fluff, and B) it is not normal for lemonade to have caffeine, and so C) Panera is in the wrong in this by not making it abundantly clear that one large cup of this lemonade would contain more than the daily recommended limit of a psychoactive drug.

I would say that they shouldn't be able to sell individual drinks that contain that much caffeine in the first place. Like I've said elsewhere, 30 oz of coffee is too much coffee. But at least you know what you're getting into when you drink 30 oz of coffee. So the bare minimum is to make it wildly clear, like super duper clear, that this lemonade has this much caffeine. Make it part of the sign, in text as big as the flavor. It should simply not be possible to accidentally order a drink that contains so much caffeine that it can kill someone with a heart condition.

Hawke

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I do see the sign, and they could be clearer about the amount of caffeine. But it’s not like you’re just ordering “a lemonade” and they bring it to you and surprise!

It’s like buying a hard lemonade and being shocked that it has alcohol in it. Just like “rockstar”, “go”, “rowdy”, “full throttle”. “Charged” suggests an energy drink that happens to be lemonade flavored.

And if I were sensitive to caffeine I’d be cautious about anything named like that.

starman2112

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She likely didn't ask for a "Charged Lemonade," she asked for a 30 oz fountain cup and filled it up at the self serve kiosk. There's no reason to assume she knew it was called "charged lemonade," because like I already said, nobody pays attention to the marketing fluff.