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.
We see so many ads every day that I tune out a lot of bullshit around marketing, I could easily see how a person grabbing a drink would only see the big ‘mango yuzu citrus’ and not think that was caffeinated. At first glance the label just looks like the calorie information, though it is true it should be the person’s responsibility to notice, but I could see a reasonable person making this mistake easily.
I’m not sure what we need more than 9 distinct caffeine notifications in a 2x2 area, in a section where 99% of the drinks are caffeinated and have never been marked such, to suspect that maybe this is caffeinated, too.
There’s a fine line between “it’s Panera’s fault” and “It’s the girl’s fault” that reads “holy shit, what a tragedy!”