Recently in the news, there have been multiple alleged incidents involving Panera Bread’s Charged Lemonade with people either dying or getting a permanent heart condition due to being unaware of how much caffeine they were consuming. The Charged Lemonade is behind the counter in any Panera Bread store and has multiple warnings around it.
The drink became infamous after the first major incident occurred in 2022 when it allegedly led to 21-year-old Sarah Katz’s death. Katz had a heart condition that required her to pay extra attention to anything she consumed, according to her family. She believed it was an electrolyte drink that contained only a small amount of caffeine.
The Katz family filed a lawsuit against Panera in October because they believe the company failed to warn the public about how much caffeine the drink contained. Then in December, 46-year-old Dennis Brown died after consuming the lemonade, and a lawsuit was filed against the company, according to USA Today. And now in January Lauren Skeritt, a 28-year-old woman in Delaware, filed a lawsuit that claims she experienced heart issues after drinking the lemonade.
All the alleged victims of the Charged Lemonade consumed too much caffeine and it had adverse effects on them. The regular 20-ounce size of the drink can contain up to 157 milligrams of caffeine depending on the flavor, and a 30-ounce cup can contain up to 237 milligrams of caffeine. But it was clear how much caffeine each lemonade contained according to a label on the drink container, even before the first alleged incident. After Katz’s death, the in-store warning labels were enhanced to be more visible, according to NBC.
The drink is promoted as “a plant-based, clean caffeine” drink that is an alternative to coffee. It is not all that different from juice-based energy drinks — like a 16-ounce can of Monster Energy Original Flavor which contains 160 milligrams of caffeine, around the same as a 20-ounce can of the lemonade. Consuming two Monster Energy drinks or two regular sized Charged Lemonades still would not be enough to reach the maximum limit of a healthy amount of caffeine for adults, which is up to 400 milligrams in a day, according to mayoclinic.org.
Panera Bread restaurants tend to attract young adults, since most restaurants provide a calm environment and a free refill every two hours — including the Charged Lemonades — with the Panera Sip Club that only costs $11.99 per month. McKinley’s has a fridge filled with energy drinks, flavored iced coffees and hot coffee near the condiments. It is not hard for people to obtain caffeine, and especially a lot of it.
Caffeine has the potential to cause health issues such as anxiety, irregular heartbeat, muscle tremors and even death if there is an underlying heart condition at the same time.
But even if Panera Bread can be blamed for causing people to experience a caffeine overdose, they are not forcing anyone to consume more caffeine than they want to. Consumers have to make an effort to pay attention to what they consume to avoid incidents such as those from happening. The party that sold them the drink can only be reasonably blamed if they lied about the drink’s content — which was apparently not the case for the lemonade. Panera lists the amount of caffeine in the lemonade on its website.
Misreading or not looking for the nutritional value of what you are drinking when you get a Charged Lemonade is the fault of the consumer. The company is only one part of the problem in normalized excessive caffeine consumption.