Standardization. Standardization is something that you will hear in the food industry a lot and McDonalds Ice-Cream Machine is a part of it.
Standardization in the fast food industry involves establishing a set of guidelines, policies, and procedures for the preparation, cooking, and serving of food. This is essential especially for this industry because of its efficiency, speed, and consistency.
Restaurants want to show the same unique flavor everywhere you go. The same quality of food means you build brand loyalty.
Brand loyalty eventually brings in more and most important consistent customers.
Fast food restaurants go to huge lengths to make sure their food stays the same. They have the same menu items, the same ingredients, the same recipes, and the same way of cooking, with the same machines available to every restaurant.
This produces a consistent food quality in every single branch of fast food u go to.
McDonald’s has implemented this with their assembly line-type kitchens, which is what attracted Ray Kroc, the man who visioned golden arches in every town.
One of the machines that they use is the McDonalds Taylor C602 digital ice cream machine.
Now before we go into the ice cream machines, we have to understand the company, Taylor.
Taylor And McDonald’s have been partners ever since 1956. In 1956, the company made a handshake agreement with Ray Kroc of McDonald’s Corporation to supply milkshake machines for the fast food chain. The parent company of Taylor is MiddleBy Corporation.
And their relationship with McDonald’s is pretty much a lifeline for them. If McDonald’s does not sell ice cream. They feel the hits too. Now back to the ice cream machines.
As we know, McDonald’s and Taylor have a 20-year relationship extending to 1956. And so, Taylor custom makes ice cream machines for Mcdonald’s. These ice cream machines are rather special as they can make both ice cream and milkshakes in the same machine.
It can also preserve its contents using its 4-hour heat cycle which is typically run every night by its employees. It has dairy products that are heated up to 151 Fahrenheit to kill all of their germs and come back to freezing temperatures.
And if the heat cycle fails, it shows a bunch of error codes u cant understand. It’s cryptic, but it doesn’t explain and people get frustrated. every single error code in the manual is vague, the buttons are finicky, old, and illegible, This does not look like a machine from 2022 its looks like its designed in 1956 and stayed there.
Now the food industry is a let’s say picky place for its customers. And when food is involved, people turn different. As far as the employees are concerned, who btw are usually college students after a long day just trying to serve food and get their job done.
The average age of people working in fast food is 23 years old.
And another thing here to note is that these restaurants are not exactly owned by McDonald’s.
Approximately 93% of McDonald’s is owned by individuals, and independent local business owners. this means that when something breaks down.
McDonald’s does not need to shell out its cash, to repair it as it is effectively owned by a single individual.
The owner has to pay for everything there and its repairs and guess what McDonald’s expects nothing but the best from these people. take a look into the financing website promo.
okay, I get it u want profit and excellence and stuff, I get it. but what does the owner or employee do if a machine keeps breaking down? they should replace it right? they should change it or at least talk it out with their besties for over 20 years in Taylor.
But why are they doing that, why are they taking any action? but what if I told you this is intentional, the design is meant to fail? The software updates just bring more errors wanted and McDonald’s and Taylor are both profiting from this.
Now if u go it is the service manual that I got online and read through it. (I read it and I do not recommend it for your sanity). This service manual is meant for Taylor technicians’ eyes only.
But why this warning, why this secrecy, there can’t anything different about it from the manual they give to owners right?
Wrong. U see the service manuals come with a literal secret code that opens up to functions that CAN be used to fix the machine which is used by Taylor technicians to fix the machines.
Even most of the “troubleshooting” points to “calling the guy” who can fix the machine there are pages to just words “call a service technician”.
And no one else can repair it other than an “authorized Taylor service technician” and how much does it charge for the repair?
credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4
and 144 for FIRST-HOUR LABOUR AND TRAVEL. And ADDITIONAL 100 dollars every 15 mins. So the owner of the franchise has to decide between a broken ice cream machine and angry customers.
Which leads to spending thousands of dollars every month just to get it fixed. Guess what Taylor most focuses on Its repair and service department which btw earns 25% of its ongoing revenue.
The bottom line is that the bottom line of McDonald’s ice cream is Taylor’s bottom line too. (i could not resist myself for that pun)
Constant recurring customers are like a gold mine for investors since its recurring revenue and a constant stream of revenue each month.
And remember, because of standardization McDonald’s is forced to use this machine and so are the franchise owners Why is McDonald’s okay with this? Because again the cost is not borne by them but there is another layer to this. If u look at the shareholders of Middleby Corporation and McDonald’s, they seem to share a lot of similarities.
Looks like we know the main owners of
1. The Vanguard Group, Inc.
2.BlackRock Fund Advisors
3. Wellington Management Co. LLP
4.JPMorgan Investment Management
5.T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.
These people know exactly what they owe and what their company’s relationships are.
They know of Taylor and McDonald’s profits more or less rely on each other. And they know about the owners who have to pay thousands of dollars for repair and they know they have a constant source of revenue.
And why, why would they fix that? Is there a solution to this problem?
There is already one and its called Right To Repair and the company which solved the problem but is getting heckled by Taylor and McDonald,kytch
Jeremy O’Sullivan and Melissa Nelson, a couple were very annoyed with ice cream machines being constantly broken and set out on a journey to fix it. They tried to fix machines themselves with the use of the manuals given by Taylor. But they failed.
One day, they noticed Taylor technicians using a literal secret code available only to them which leads to a menu no one knows about.
After years of research, they made a device that is easy for the owners to use and also tells what the problem is and what needs to be fixed. That device is called kytch.
Kytch is a size of a small paper book that attaches to the machines and they began selling to restaurant owners of fast food restaurants to success. But Taylor got wind of this and immediately did not like it for obvious reasons.
McDonald’s “strongly recommends ” a memo pretty much saying that kytch has to be removed or else the warranty for the machines would be gone and also “may endanger employees”
Then Taylor tried to get kytch devices to try and reverse engineer the device.
“Then in Mid 2020, emails of Vice President of engineering show screenshots comparing kytch and Taylor’s operating system and trying to fun and desirable”
credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDLfbHPEAGo
Taylor was suggested to make “similar changes” to kytch.
The same VP also asked employees to buy a kytch kit and provide a written evaluation of the hardware and software.
Kytch now has a 900 million dollar complaint lawsuit going on with them suing to accuse McDonald’s and Taylor of defamation and stealing trade secrets.
All of this just boils down to owners to the Right To Repair. Taylor is not the first company to stop owners to repair, even John Deere has stopped farmers from repairing its machines and Apple has famously stopped any attempts of people trying to repair its products.
Our consumerist culture has led us to buy and discard products without much thought to the environmental and economic consequences.
We need to shift our focus toward a more sustainable model where we repair and reuse products rather than dispose of them.
The right-to-repair movement seeks to empower individuals and independent repair shops to fix and maintain their devices, rather than relying on manufacturers for repairs.
This movement is not only environmentally friendly, but it also promotes a more equitable economy by allowing consumers to make their repairs, rather than being forced to pay exorbitant prices for manufacturer repairs.
In conclusion, I believe that the right-to-repair movement is crucial for a sustainable future. It is time for us to take control of our devices and repair them, rather than constantly replacing them. We need to advocate for policies that promote the right to repair and support independent repair shops. By doing so, we can build a more sustainable and equitable society.
