The feds have had it with McDonald’s broken McFlurry machines.
According to reports, the Federal Trade Commission is investigating why burger chain ice cream machines break down so often, an issue that has become the backbone of nightly TV jokes and viral posts. of social media.
The FTC contacted McDonald’s franchise owners this summer for information on the chain’s ice cream machine problem, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing an FTC letter and sources familiar with the question.
When The Post came to comment, FTC representatives declined to comment.
The broken machines have angered the franchisees, who say it leaves them unable to serve smoothies, soft cones and the preeminent McFlurry, a cup of ice cream mixed with sweets and cookies.
The machines require an automated heat cleaning cycle every night that can take up to four hours, according to the newspaper, and the cleaning cycle can fail, making the machines unusable until a repair technician can fix them.
Dysfunctional machines make candy that accounts for about 60 percent of the chain’s dessert sales in the U.S., according to the newspaper, which cites a consumer survey by research firm Technomic.
And repeated failures rub customers wrong, encouraging some to even file petitions for action.
“We are fed up with being the butt of the jokes of the night. Our customers and teams are too, ”the National Homeowners Association, a group of franchisees, said in a May message to homeowners, according to the newspaper.
Some franchise owners don’t expect corporate bosses to do anything. Instead, they seem to pay on their own to train staff on how to fix the machines.
Others have contacted the machine manufacturer, Taylor Commercial Foodservice, which says the machines are fine.
“Much of what has been aired can be attributed to a lack of knowledge about the equipment and how it works in restaurants,” a Taylor representative told the magazine.
When working with dairy products, “you need to make sure that the machine is cleaned properly. The machines are built with many interconnected parts that must work in a complex environment and way “, added the representative.
“There is no reason why we purposefully design our equipment so that it is confusing or difficult to repair or harm our operators.”
A startup, called Kytch, has tried to help franchisees solve the problem by creating a device that installs on ice cream machines and warns owners of a breakdown via text and email alerts. real time.
The company told the Journal that its devices can prevent damage to machines and help franchisees keep them running.
At one point, 30-state McDonald’s franchisees used Kytch’s devices, the company told the newspaper, but McDonald’s told franchisees that the devices are not sanctioned and could pose a security hazard, which which Kytch denies.
“Nothing is more important to us than meeting our high standards of food quality and safety,” the parent company told franchisees.
Kytch responded in May with a lawsuit accusing Taylor, an independent repair company authorized to work on ice cream machines, and a McDonald’s franchisee of conspiring to steal Kytch’s technology and replicate his device.
“This is a case about corporate espionage and the extreme steps a manufacturer has taken to hide and protect a multimillion-dollar repair racket,” Kytch’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit in California’s Superior Court in Alameda County . The case is pending.
But Taylor denied that he had a copy of Kytch’s device or that he wanted to steal the startup’s technology.
“This is a case of a hacker (Kytch) who incredibly accused the pirate of robbery,” Taylor’s lawyers said in a lawsuit.
The Tennessee-based franchisee who was named in the lawsuit also denied the allegations.
In an interview with the newspaper, Kytch co-founder Jeremy O’Sullivan accused Taylor of violating the rights of McDonald’s franchisees to alter and repair their ice cream machines.
Taylor responded by saying that owners are allowed to repair the equipment as they see fit, but that the warranty on the machines is invalid if they fix them on their own, according to the Journal.
The FTC’s interest in the issue may stem from the efforts previously announced by the Biden administration to repress various manufacturers of products ranging from telephones to agricultural equipment.
Critics have alleged that major manufacturers of such products restrict customers from fixing them themselves.
In July, Biden signed an executive order to direct the agencies to take over the matter, saying at the time that in an information sheet that Americans should be able to repair the good they bought on their own.
The source of the FTC’s investigation is how McDonald’s reviews suppliers and equipment, including ice cream machines, and how often restaurant owners can work on their machines, a person familiar with the newspaper told the newspaper. the question.
The FTC’s investigation is preliminary and “the existence of a preliminary investigation does not indicate that the FTC or its staff have found any fault,” the agency’s letter said.
In a statement, McDonald’s said it “has no reason to believe we are the center of an FTC investigation.”