Is There A Potentially Deadly Amount Of Caffeine In This Popular Panera Bread Beverage?

When life hands you lemons, you should make lemonade. But don’t add too much caffeine into the mix.

Panera Bread is being accused of doing exactly that with its so-called “Charged Lemonade,” and a pair of lawsuits against the chain say excessive consumption of the drink proved fatal.

What’s in the cup?

As its name implies, Charged Lemonade comes with quite a kick. A large serving has more caffeine than a 12-ounce can of Red Bull and a 16-ounce can of Monster … combined!

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily make it a deadly concoction, but a lawsuit filed in Florida this week claims a 46-year-old man suffered a fatal heart attack after drinking three cups of the stuff.

That legal action came just months after the parents of a college student filed a similar lawsuit linking the lemonade with her death.

The company responds

The most recent lawsuit insists that Panera Bread “knew or should have known” about the potential risks associated with offering the highly caffeinated beverage to people (particularly children, pregnant women, and individuals with certain medical issues) and failed to provide adequate warnings.

For its part, the chain issued a statement offering “our deepest sympathy” for the family of Dennis Brown, who died in October. Nevertheless, it cited an internal investigation in concluding that “his unfortunate passing was not caused by one of the company’s products.”

Panera added that it “stands firmly by the safety” of its menu items, including Charged Lemonade.

The company has offered additional transparency about the amount of caffeine in the beverage, which totals 390 milligrams in the large size.

For the record, that’s just 10 milligrams less than what the Food and Drug Administration says “healthy adults” should be able to safely ingest over the course of a day.

Chris Agee December 6th, 2023

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