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We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

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Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#281

Post by CamperBob2 »

mattmaroon wrote: post #280
CamperBob2 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why is the situation what it is? As numerous people have pointed out, other fast-food chains don't have this problem. They are able to provide ice-cream products that are consistently free of either toxins or excuses. Occam's Razor suggests that the most likely explanation is that the McDonald's Corporation is deliberately setting their franchisees up to fail by continuing to sign contracts with Taylor. Which I…

That’s not what Occam’s razor would suggest at all. That’s a silly conspiracy theory that’s easily verified as false if you know anything about the ice cream industry or just bother to Google who makes the machines. Occam’s razor might suggest that their competitors use a different machine entirely (I really don’t know but Wikipedia’s page on Taylor only mentions McDonald’s). McDonald’s corporate making a bad decisio…

McDonald’s corporate making a bad decision about a machine seems a whole lot simpler than some convoluted conspiracy theory, doesn’t it?

That excuse wears thin after 10+ years.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#282

Post by justsomehnguy »

qingcharles wrote: post #110
yakz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald’s pricing is complicated. You can still get cheap McDonald’s, but it requires giving them something in return (e.g. information about you).

Indeed, you can practically eat for free regularly at McD's if you use the app.

> Indeed, you can practically eat for free regularly at McD's if you use the app.

Bwahahah!

Not only you give data about you but now you are actively prefer to eat at McD instead of any other option and you are not even thinking about it.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#283

Post by dangus »

jhbadger wrote: post #224
dangus wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Who cares if the McDonald's ice cream machine is broken? It's shit ice cream. Most of you probably live near a better local ice cream/soft serve/custard joint. Heck, most of you probably live near a better corporate chain ice cream joint that probably also serves better food than McDonald's: Dairy Queen, In-N-Out, Shake Shack, Culver's, etc. If McDonald's didn't have breakfast or coffee the whole cha…

It's pretty good soft serve ice cream, which is a style many people like. It isn't really any worse than other chain soft serve ice cream like Dairy Queen's. It's not the same sort of thing as scooped hard ice cream, and it isn't something you can really make at home, whatever the merits of home made ice cream are.

The Ninja CREAMi makes soft serve at home.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#284

Post by dangus »

downut wrote: post #252
jhbadger wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty good soft serve ice cream, which is a style many people like. It isn't really any worse than other chain soft serve ice cream like Dairy Queen's. It's not the same sort of thing as scooped hard ice cream, and it isn't something you can really make at home, whatever the merits of home made ice cream are.

We've made homemade ice cream dozens of times over 50 years... and the way I think about the delicious result is that it's like... soft serve ice cream. I think I prefer the texture of "scooped hard ice scream" but homemade with just cream, eggs, sugar, and whatever for the flavorings is just an outstanding tasty thing to eat. I've never tasted industrial soft serve, maybe something else is going on? Thinking back we…

The home ice cream market is perhaps far more developed than you realize.

You can make a harder scooped ice cream style with compressor-equipped machines from brands like Whynter.

You can make soft serve, milkshakes, concretes, and gelato with the Ninja CREAMi. I've heard it even does a decent job of making a knockoff of what you get out of a Pacojet [1] at Michelin-starred restaurants.

And of course there are a number of insulated bowl-style ice cream makers like the KitchenAid ice cream maker, which is the one I use and enjoy. I don't find that I would describe the end product as soft serve-like.

[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/the-scoop-on-paco-jets

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#285

Post by dangus »

gosub100 wrote: post #228
dangus wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Who cares if the McDonald's ice cream machine is broken? It's shit ice cream. Most of you probably live near a better local ice cream/soft serve/custard joint. Heck, most of you probably live near a better corporate chain ice cream joint that probably also serves better food than McDonald's: Dairy Queen, In-N-Out, Shake Shack, Culver's, etc. If McDonald's didn't have breakfast or coffee the whole cha…

> if you had a half a million dollars in freely available non-borrowed assets and you couldn't think of your own business model to try the problem isn't a lack of thinking-up something new. It's a matter of risk management. Any new business idea has a significant risk of ruin. Compared to owning a chain restaurant, especially mcd's.

And I fully realize that...but someone with a half a million dollars has the capital to start at least 5 small businesses.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#286

Post by dangus »

wokwokwok wrote: post #185
dangus wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that the ice cream/milkshakes has been problematic for McDonald's from an operational standpoint, I think your business analysis is pretty terrible. If anything, ice cream products represent a very profitable item that often serves as an upsell helping drive the APV (average purchase value) higher. Milkshakes in particular have a unique "job to be done" in the drive-thru fast food industry: https://hbsw…

While some of that might be true, explain to me why an organisation like macdonalds would allow up to 30% of such machinery to be out of working order for years and years in high value areas. Your analysis posits what, that they’re just blatantly incompetent? I don’t believe that. If the economics of a working ice cream machine were that good, it would be a solved problem. You don’t run an organisation like MacDonald…

I think it's actually telling that so many of them are broken but the product hasn't been discontinued. It tells you that it's not really a burdensome product to have on the menu.

Dump the liquid in the machine, turn it on, empty and clean the machine at close. There's almost nothing else in the store that is so low-effort.

I'm not saying that the high rate of failure isn't a problem or lost revenue.

I also have a hunch that the problem disproportionately affects specific franchise owners who benefit from the product less than others.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#287

Post by davidron »

LtWorf wrote: post #274
Bjartr wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue as I understand it, is that the machine is fairly opaque as to why some failures occur can appear somewhat "flaky" as a result. When this occurs during a cleaning cycle, the whole cycle is void and a new 4 hour cycle must be run. If the machine was clear about communicating the issue, it would be fine. It's not and can require a technician to come out with a tool to both read the machine status in d…

McDonald is big enough to change suppliers of machines and impose easy maintenance.

... If incentives were properly aligned to make this the correct strategy, then this is probably what McDonald's would do. Unfortunately not. https://www.today.com/food/trends/why-is-mcdonalds-ice-cream...

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#288

Post by night862 »

LtWorf wrote: post #274
Bjartr wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue as I understand it, is that the machine is fairly opaque as to why some failures occur can appear somewhat "flaky" as a result. When this occurs during a cleaning cycle, the whole cycle is void and a new 4 hour cycle must be run. If the machine was clear about communicating the issue, it would be fine. It's not and can require a technician to come out with a tool to both read the machine status in d…

McDonald is big enough to change suppliers of machines and impose easy maintenance.

In principle, but they probably contracted this out decades ago. Theres a lot of licensing requirements and regulations surrounding dairy.

This is actually the real source and meaning of the classic track by Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, "Safe as milk." Dairy is a huge systemic risk, operates on extremely narrow windows everywhere in its production and if left unmanaged will cause outbreaks of horrifying diseases like Typhoid.

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#289

Post by doctorpangloss »

nemomarx wrote: post #80
doctorpangloss wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a simple question. I know it’s illegal. Should regular people face consequences or not? The status quo is “no,” which is the first step to understanding why making consequences for circumventing DRM is a bitter compromise that is maybe the best option.

I'm not sure I follow. In the case where breaking DRM isn't illegal, but piracy still is illegal, what happens that you think is bad?

What is the difference between doing something illegal and having consequences and doing something illegal that has no consequences?

Re: We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines

#290

Post by mattmaroon »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #281
mattmaroon wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what Occam’s razor would suggest at all. That’s a silly conspiracy theory that’s easily verified as false if you know anything about the ice cream industry or just bother to Google who makes the machines. Occam’s razor might suggest that their competitors use a different machine entirely (I really don’t know but Wikipedia’s page on Taylor only mentions McDonald’s). McDonald’s corporate making a bad decisio…

McDonald’s corporate making a bad decision about a machine seems a whole lot simpler than some convoluted conspiracy theory, doesn’t it? That excuse wears thin after 10+ years.

It’s not an excuse, almost everyone agrees they screwed up. But it’s an explanation. They likely signed a long term contract. Then a few years ago they allowed franchisees to use another brand.
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