Reading time: 2 minutes – Spotted on Ars Technica
Established in the United States and Canada, where it has no less than 2,000 stores, the Panera Bread company sells not only pastries, but also all kinds of hot and cold drinks: tea, coffee, but also… enriched lemonades in caffeine. For a few dollars, you could previously order “charged lemonades”, the name given to these drinks supposed to have effects similar to those of taurine-based energy drinks.
The only thing is: after having been designated as responsible for at least two deaths, the drinks in question are being removed from the chain’s menus. Tuesday, May 6, a press release from Panera Bread mentioned the imminent arrival of a new menu containing drinks that are certainly energy-boosting, but officially less dangerous than those sold in the past, and which have already earned it three lawsuits, reports Ars Technica.
Panera Bread had already made headlines in 2022 due to the high level of caffeine in some of its drinks, which are also available in self-service with the possibility of refilling at will. In their most imposing version, the lemonades pointed out, with a volume of around 90 centiliters, contained around 390 milligrams of caffeine, compared to 260 milligrams in the smaller version (60 centiliters all the same).
To exceed the limits
However, the Food and Drug Administration (an authoritative American institution in matters of health) estimates that the daily limit not to be exceeded for a healthy adult is 400 milligrams (the equivalent of a liter of Red Bull). It is therefore likely that Panera Bread knowingly played with the limits, and that people with weak hearts could not tolerate the high caffeine content of its lemonades.
This was obviously the case of Sarah Katz, who died at the age of 21 in September 2022 after consuming one of these drinks in a brand store in Philadelphia. During the trial which took place at the end of 2023, the parents of the deceased claimed that she, who suffered from a heart problem, did not know that the fatal lemonade contained a high dose of caffeine, and that she believed rather than it being “a traditional lemonade or an electrolyte exercise drink, containing a reasonable level of caffeine”.
As for Dennis Brown, 46, he died in October 2023 in Florida, of a cardiac arrest that occurred while he was walking home from a Panera Bread store, where he had apparently refilled his lemonade twice. In December of that year, his family sued the company. For its part, CNN mentions a third legal case launched in January 2024, an American woman having decided to file a complaint due to abnormal palpitations that occurred after drinking two and a half lemonades.
In Panera Bread’s new menu, no drink should now exceed 302 milligrams of caffeine, which is still quite high. In addition, fountains allowing you to serve as much as you want are gradually being placed behind the service counters, indicates the brand. This could certainly prevent some customers from using tire-larigot without thinking, but will the problem be solved?
