Courtesy of Wilkes Works Communications Consulting

After drinking an AriZona Arnold Palmer Lite beverage, a woman alleges that the can didn’t feel as “lite” as it should have.

This led to an unsettling discovery, similar to discoveries alleged by at least 26 other consumers.

On May 1, Shannon Sellers, then living in Oxford, said she sat down in a weekly departmental meeting at work and cracked open the canned drink and began drinking it.

“I realized that the weight of the can felt weird even though I was fairly sure I had finished the drink,” Sellers said. “I kept tilting it up and trying to drink the remaining tea out of it, but nothing was coming out. I tried to look into the can and noticed there was something at the bottom of the container. I lifted the can up and leaned it towards me to bring the object up to the opening and as I did, a rodent paw emerged through the can’s opening.”

Sellers said she became horrified and nauseated before running to the restroom to vomit, and said she remains traumatized by the incident. Filled with anxiety and nausea, she took the can with her to an appointment with a physician, at which time she and the doctor discovered that, in fact, there were two mice in the can, not just one.

“I ended up taking the next two days off of work because I was struggling so significantly with nausea and anxiety after the incident,” Sellers said. “I just felt so disgusted and struggled to eat or drink for several days because I was so terrified of consuming something else that was tainted.”

Sellers filed suit against the drink’s manufacturer, New Jersey-based US Beverage Packers, LLC, in January of 2024. Her claims include negligence in the manufacture and bottling of the drink, product liability, and breach of implied and express warranties. The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi in Oxford.

During the discovery process in this litigation, it came to light that Sellers was not the only one who alleged to have made such a gruesome discovery after drinking an AriZona product. After several months, US Beverages finally produced 79 pages of consumer complaints related to rodents in beverages. The complaints originate from the Eastern portion of the United States, the Midwest and the South.

 

“Even now, more than a year later, I still struggle to eat or drink any of the foods I had the day I drank the contaminated tea and am constantly on edge if I have to drink out of an opaque container,” Sellers said. “It is so embarrassing and frustrating that I have to live in fear of finding something dead in a sealed container, that I am constantly on edge about seeing or hearing a rodent.”