Objectives: Caffeine is a commonly consumed beverage throughout the world. It is used for a variety of reasons and its apparent benefits include increased alertness, attention and heightened cognition. In the absence of proper monitoring regulations, hundreds of different brands with variable caffeine content are now being marketed. This work describes a simple high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) method for quantification of caffeine in beverages and confectionaries. Consumer interest, regulatory implications concerning labeling as well as clinical implications are also addressed. Material and Methods: Caffeine was extracted using liquid- liquid extraction with dichloride methane. Samples and standards were applied on silica gel 60 F 254 plates. After chromatography separation, densitometry detection was performed by TLC scanner at 274 nm. Results: The calibration showed a linear regression with a determination coefficient (R 2 ) of 0.9982 in the working range of 10 -80 mg/L. Inter and intra- day precision in terms of %RSD was less than 1%. Recovery at different concentration levels was 95-100%. Limit of detection was 11mg/L while limit of quantification was 42mg/L. Conclusion: Caffeine content in forty four different caffeine containing products varied from 1.1 mg to 138 mg/serving across different products. Declaring caffeine content on product label will be in the interest of consumers and will also help the consumer moderate caffeine intake.
