Panera Bread has hired a high-profile crisis manager as the bakery-cafe chain deals with ongoing lawsuits over its highly caffeinated Charged Lemonade and plans a long-awaited initial public offering.
Brooke Buchanan is Panera’s new chief corporate affairs officer, a company spokesperson confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday. Buchanan comes to Panera from Edelman, a global communications company where she most recently led the US crisis, helping companies prepare for and respond to reputational risk. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Once dubbed a “corporate Ghostbuster” by Vanity Fair, Buchanan was the chief spokeswoman for embattled blood-testing company Theranos during the fraud scandal following a 2015 Wall Street Journal expose by the startup’s founder, Elizabeth Holmes. In the role, which she left after less than a year, Buchanan handled the company’s messaging during Theranos’ fall from grace, as investigated by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Buchanan’s new role at Panera comes a month after the restaurant chain reached a settlement with plaintiffs in the first of four lawsuits they face over the Charged Lemonade. The confidential settlement was with the family of Sarah Katz, an Ivy League student with a heart condition who died after drinking Charged Lemonade in September 2022.
Panera, which has denied wrongdoing, announced in May that it would discontinue the lemonade nationwide as part of a “recent menu transformation.”
The lawsuits, all filed by Philadelphia law firm Kline & Specter, PC, called the drink a “dangerous energy drink.” In addition to Katz’s death, the lawsuits blamed the drink for the death of a Florida man and for causing permanent heart damage in two previously healthy people. Those lawsuits are still ongoing, and Florida’s death case is expected to go to trial in November 2025, said Elizabeth Crawford, a partner at Kline & Specter. Of the plaintiffs alleging cardiac injuries, one has a trial scheduled for April 2026, while the other is still awaiting a trial date, Crawford said.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, healthy adults can safely consume about 400 milligrams of caffeine daily. The lawsuits allege that Charged Lemonade was advertised as a “plant-based and clean” drink that contained as much caffeine as the restaurant’s dark roast coffee. But with 390 milligrams of caffeine, served without ice, a large Charged Lemonade contained more caffeine than any measure of Panera’s dark roast coffee, the court documents said. The Charged Lemonade also contained guarana extract, another stimulant, and the equivalent of nearly 30 teaspoons of sugar in the large size, the court documents said.
After the lawsuit over Katz’s death, Panera made several changes, including moving the Charged Lemonade behind the counter so it was no longer self-serve, and updating the nutritional information to reflect how much caffeine was in the drink as it was served with ice cream. Signs were also displayed in stores warning that Charged Lemonade should be consumed in moderation.
Panera, headquartered in Missouri, was bought in 2017 by European investment group JAB Holding Co., which took the chain from public to private. Panera has long indicated plans to go public again and has filed confidential paperwork for an initial public offering by the end of 2023.
A JAB spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday on the timing of a possible IPO and on Buchanan’s hiring.
After her time at Theranos, Buchanan became global vice president of communications at Whole Foods as the supermarket chain recovered from allegations that it overcharged customers for packaged foods, over which it paid $500,000 as part of a settlement with New York’s consumer affairs department City. Whole Foods denied the allegations as part of the settlement.
Buchanan has also held public relations positions at Walmart, JCPenney and Williams-Sonoma, and she worked as a senior press adviser for the late Sen. John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign, according to her LinkedIn page.
She joins Panera at a time when casual restaurants as a whole are struggling: TGI Fridays recently closed dozens of restaurants and filed for bankruptcy, while Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year before working its way out.
Last November, The Wall Street Journal reported that Panera had laid off about 17% of its corporate workforce ahead of its planned initial public offering. The company reportedly had more corporate layoffs in October this year.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
