‘The amount of times I’ve seen perishable items on a random shelf…’: Customer bought Panera soups on clearance at Kroger. He got food poisoning

A user on TikTok has sparked discussion after claiming that a Panera prepackaged soup he bought on clearance from Kroger gave him such severe food poisoning that he considered going to the hospital.

In a video with over 27,000 views, TikTok user Taylor (@taylorelson) recounts his experience.

Taylor says he purchased the soups from a Kroger location on June 3. The soups were labeled with an expiration date of June 12. He claims that he brought them "straight home" and put them in the refrigerator.

The next day, Taylor consumed one of the soups.

"I'm eating it, and I'm thinking, 'Hmm, this tastes kind of funky,' right? At least for a tomato soup you would think that it would taste like tomato soup, but it didn't," he recalls in the video. "It was, like, sour and weird tasting."

By 6 am the next day, he had become sick and began vomiting. This fits within the typical timeline of food poisoning, as people usually develop symptoms within one to two days of consuming contaminated food.

@taylorelson
Im literally traumatized.
♬ original sound – Taylor Elson

"I literally could not stop," he says. "For, like, an hour [I] was literally just sitting in the bathroom and wondering why this is happening to me."

He goes on to say that this bout of food poisoning ruined many pairs of underwear, his bedsheets, and his couch. 

Taylor goes on to speculate that there was not an issue with the soup itself. Rather, he questions whether the Kroger location may have left the soup outside of refrigeration for too long, then tried to sell it anyway.

Panera at Home products must be refrigerated, per a comment from the brand on its Facebook page in response to a similar food poisoning story.

"Our Panera at Home soups should be refrigerated at all times," the company wrote to a customer. "We recommend going back to your local grocery store to request a refund."

On TikTok, commenters claimed that Taylor's theory was plausible.

"This is exactly what happens,I used to work at kroger," claimed one user.

"The amount of times I've seen perishable items on a random shelf like someone just decided they didn't want it," shared another.

"Where I work I'll put dairy that has been left out in damage. but dairy workers think it's a misplacement so they put it back on the shelf," offered a third.

However, others countered that stores can have strict policies when it comes to food that's been left out for too long.

"Guess it depend what grocery store it is," said a commenter. "We have to throw everything away that was in the temperature danger zone."

"You can't put stuff left out on clearance. That is NOT how that works," stated an additional TikToker.

The Daily Dot reached out to Kroger, Panera Bread, and Taylor via email.

Update 2:15pm CT June 8: In an email to the Daily Dot, Taylor said that he's slowly recovering from his food poisoning.

"I am doing okay now. I seem much better on the outside than I am on the inside," he wrote. "My stomach has been getting better day by day, but for a while it was very touch and go."

He has also contacted Kroger to try to find some resolution to the issue.

"I have reached out to Kroger to try and file a claim, but I'm not sure it will do anything other than refund my money," he detailed.

"What I learned from this experience is that you need to be more cautious about things that contain dairy or meat being put on clearance," Taylor stated. "It's very disheartening to see a lot grocery store employees alleging that they have been forced to resell items they know will be harmful or unsafe. I wish that big businesses would do better, but this is the world we live in!"