Consumers have finally complained so much about the ice cream machines not working that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seriously looking into the matter. The ice cream machines are in 14,000 locations in the U.S.
Soft serve ice cream machines are a breeding ground for disease if they aren’t properly maintained. A 2005 NBC News investigation revealed just how dirty those machines can be reports Vice News. In fact, some employees have figured ways to fix them but are actually not compliant with what is required to keep them safe from bacteria and mold. Machines should be cleaned on a daily basis and in some cases it has been reported that employees are taking on this project when managers should be performing this task.
A “jumper,” which is a small metal or plastic bracket can be installed on some of the electric pins on the back of the machine to bypass a software system that makes the machine inoperable if it hasn’t been cleaned in a certain amount of time. But once the ice cream comes out it can be harmful as it bypasses critical cleaning and sanitization features; Taylor itself has told maintenance workers that doing so “can greatly increase the risk of serving unsafe product to the public.” Franchises are under pressure to get these machines working to satisfy customers, but should never risk health and safety concerns, hence the reason the FTC is getting involved.
It turns out that when the machines breakdown the only company that is able to fix them is a company called Taylor. The company is now embedded in a legal battle because it prevent restaurants from repairing the machines on their own. It has been reported that the software used to clean and fix these machines is quite complex. The lawsuit claims the reason these machines are so hard to fix is due to “flawed code that caused the machines to malfunction.”
This has become such a popular subject there is now a website where you can track broken machines called https://mcbroken.com/
I reverse engineered mcdonald’s internal api and I’m currently placing an order worth $18,752 every minute at every mcdonald’s in the US to figure out which locations have a broken ice cream machine https://t.co/2KsRwAdrMd
– rashiq (@rashiq) October 22, 2020
The machines break down so much that McDonalds has a tweet joke about it.
we have a joke about our soft serve machine but we’re worried it won’t work
– McDonald’s (@McDonalds) August 11, 2020
This has become such a popular subject there is now a website where you can track broken machines called https://mcbroken.com/
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