McDonald’s Faces a Milk-Shakedown

Why is the McFlurry machine always broken? The FTC also wants to know

McDonald’s McFlurry machine is famous for great ice cream and for never being able to serve said ice cream. The machine is out-of-order so frequently that it’s become a long-running joke (read: big customer bugbear). Even the company couldn’t help but poke fun at the problem, tweeting, “We have a joke about our soft serve machine but we’re worried it won’t work.”

Customers have continually made their disappointment heard, and it’s now the most common complaint. Conspiracy theories have grown louder, including the popular one that McDonald’s employees intentionally lie about the machine being broken to avoid making shakes and McFlurries. (As a former hospitality worker, this is likely true in some cases). Websites like Mcbroken were created to help customers satisfy their ice-cream cravings, which show the operating status of the machines in real-time by using a system that orders a McFlurry from every restaurant every 30 minutes, noting which orders fail due to an error.

And now, the Federal Trade Commission wants to know why the machines are always broken, believing the issue could be “potentially in violation of antitrust law.”

The issue at hand is twofold; the machines themselves and who has the right to repair them. The machines are expensive, have complicated code within, and have to manage the delicate process of being able to withstand the cold temperature needed to serve the ice cream and the hotter environment required during its cleaning cycle. In short, the machines are far from intuitive, prone to breakdowns, and are not easy to get back up and running. Some even accuse the Taylor Company, the manufacturers of the machines, of inserting intentionally ‘janky’ code that sets the machines up to fail. The company denies this, stating that “there is no reason for us to purposely design our equipment to be confusing or hard to repair or hurt our operators.”

The temperamental nature of the machines opened the door for Kytch, a startup that developed a diagnostics tool to help franchise owners get their machines fixed faster. However, the tool was met with a frosty reception from Taylor. While franchise owners are allowed to fix their own…