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 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.
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.
https://www.panerabread.com/content/dam/panerabread/integrated-web-content/documents/beverage-caffeine-guide.pdf
The article states they changed the caffeine amount since the lawsuit
A large charged lemonade has 4 times the caffeine content than a cup of coffee according to wapo which I won’t bother linking because it’s paywalled. It’s about twice the size of coffee and twice the concentration of caffeine.