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Mystery solved: This is why the McDonald's ice cream machine never works
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:51 am
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:51 am
Wired.com: They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and Started a Cold War
Can you imagine an actual McDonald's employee actually doing any of this maintenance?
Can you imagine an actual McDonald's employee actually doing any of this maintenance?
quote:
But after years of studying this complex machine and its many ways of failing, O’Sullivan remains most outraged at this notion: That the food-equipment giant Taylor sells the McFlurry-squirting devices to McDonald’s restaurant owners for about $18,000 each, and yet it keeps the machines’ inner workings secret from them. What's more, Taylor maintains a network of approved distributors that charge franchisees thousands of dollars a year for pricey maintenance contracts, with technicians on call to come and tap that secret passcode into the devices sitting on their counters.
quote:
But in keeping with McD Truth’s Italian sports car analogy, these machines are also temperamental, fragile, and ridiculously overengineered. “They work great as long as everything is 100 percent perfect,” McD Truth writes. “If something isn’t 100 percent, it will cause the machine to fail.” (McDonald’s agreement with franchisees also allows them to use an actual Italian machine, sold by Bologna-based Carpigiani, that McD Truth describes as much better designed. But given that its replacement parts can take a week to arrive from Italy, far fewer restaurants buy it.)
Every two weeks, all of Taylor's precisely engineered components have to be disassembled and sanitized. Some pieces have to be carefully lubricated. The machine’s parts include no fewer than two dozen rubber and plastic O-rings of different sizes. Leave a single one out, and the pump can fail or liquid ingredients can leak out of the machine. One McDonald’s franchisee’s tech manager told me he’s reassembled Taylor’s ice cream machines more than a hundred times, and had them work on the first try at most 10 of those times. “They’re very, very, very finicky,” he says.
13
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:53 am to Bjorn Cyborg
You'd think one of the technicians could re-engineer it and make bank. If the ice cream machine isn't working, McD's is losing money
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:53 am to Bjorn Cyborg
Nah man.
If they use them, they have to clean them. They are very tedious to clean.
I had inside sauces from college.
If they use them, they have to clean them. They are very tedious to clean.
I had inside sauces from college.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:53 am to idlewatcher
That's what the whole article is about. A guy did and McDonald's is fighting him over it.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:54 am to Bjorn Cyborg
What the frick is so special about a McFlurry?
Why don’t they just put ice cream in a blender and be done with it?
Why don’t they just put ice cream in a blender and be done with it?
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:55 am to Bjorn Cyborg
Make it like a mower deck and have a spot where you can hook up a garden hose and blast it clean
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:55 am to idlewatcher
quote:
If the ice cream machine isn't working, McD's is losing money
I'd guess they make so much on other food items, they don't really care. But at the same time if they're dropping $18k for one of these and it ain't working, the ROI is abysmal. No other fast food restaurant has constant problems with their ice cream machines.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:56 am to Bjorn Cyborg
I must be the only one in the world who doesn't care for McDonald's ice cream.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:56 am to Displaced
quote:
Nah man.
If they use them, they have to clean them. They are very tedious to clean.
I had inside sauces from college.
This is the case.
Wendy's Frostys have a "self cleaning" formula.
McFlurries do not. So McD's machines have to be cleaned FAR more often. The workers are lazy AF so they simply say "machine broke" and dont clean it.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:58 am to idlewatcher
quote:
You'd think one of the technicians could re-engineer it and make bank.
Franchisees couldn’t buy it though. McDonalds (corporate) is a leasing company not a restaurant
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:58 am to Bjorn Cyborg
I really wonder what original McDonald's tasted and looked like compared to today.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 10:59 am to Hester Carries
Apparently it does have a self-cleaning function, but it doesn't work well and causes other issues.
quote:
And while other ice cream machines have to be disassembled and cleaned daily—and any leftover contents discarded—McDonald’s Taylor machines use a daily “heat treatment” process designed to jack up its contents’ temperature to 151 degrees Fahrenheit, pasteurize it for a minimum of 30 minutes, and then refreeze it again in a once-a-night cycle, a modern marvel of hygiene and cost savings.
quote:
The machine’s automated nightly pasteurization process, rather than make life easier for restaurant managers, has become their biggest albatross: Leave the machine with a bit too much or too little ingredient mixture in its hoppers, accidentally turn it off or unplug it at the wrong moment, or fall victim to myriad other trivial errors or acts of God, and the four-hour pasteurization process fails and offers a generic, inscrutable error message—meaning that the machine won’t work until the entire four hours of heating and freezing repeats, often in the middle of peak ice cream sales hours.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 11:05 am to jlovel7
quote:
I really wonder what original McDonald's tasted and looked like compared to today.
Can't speak to original, but I can speak to their fries when they still used beef tallow, and they were nothing short of amazing. Their fries are still pretty decent, but pale in comparison to what they were in the 80's before they switched.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 11:06 am to jlovel7
quote:
I really wonder what original McDonald's tasted and looked like compared to today.
McD's memories from the 80's:
Before the snowflakes started suing, they had REAL apple pies that would burn the hell out of the roof of your mouth.
Burgers tasted more like they were actually cooked instead of microwaved.
Fries were much tastier also, with no shortage of salt!
Posted on 4/22/21 at 11:08 am to Displaced
quote:
If they use them, they have to clean them. They are very tedious to clean.
I never understood why. It's a friggin ice cream machine. Why is it so complex? My grandparents managed to make ice cream in a bucket that had like three moving parts and was simple to take apart and clean. What is it about fast food ice cream that requires a $20,000 machine and a degree in Mechanical Engineering to maintain?
This post was edited on 4/22/21 at 11:10 am
Posted on 4/22/21 at 11:16 am to TigerstuckinMS
quote:
I never understood why. It's a friggin ice cream machine. Why is it so complex? My grandparents managed to make ice cream in a bucket that had like three moving parts and was simple to take apart and clean. What is it about fast food ice cream that requires a $20,000 machine and a degree in Mechanical Engineering to maintain?
I mean, the linked article explains why. McDonald's chose to use a highly technical machine instead of one like all the other fast food places that don't have these problems use. I believe the DQ machines require just a few parts being removed and cleaned, then they pour a cleaning solution through the machine.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 11:17 am to Bjorn Cyborg
That is on McD. Find a replacement. Design your own. Plenty of options.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 11:23 am to AUCE05
quote:
That is on McD. Find a replacement. Design your own. Plenty of options.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
There are hardcore McFlurry fans. It'd be new coke all over again.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 11:23 am to The Spleen
quote:
No other fast food restaurant has constant problems with their ice cream machines.
My local Wendy's is a total crapshoot in regards to their Frosty machine. It's either not working, only has vanilla, or only has chocolate. It's rare that you could order a vanilla and a chocolate on the same order, if at all.
Posted on 4/22/21 at 11:29 am to IAmNERD
quote:
It's either not working, only has vanilla, or only has chocolate.
The former could be the employees. The latter is likely the employees either not refilling it properly or one of the two sides hitting a point where it has to run a cycle before it can be used again.
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