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McDonald’s broken ice cream machines have already become a huge hassle over the years. In 2016, it was the most popular service-related complaint to McDonald's on Twitter. So, why is it such a common issue for the fast-food giant?

McDonald’s Battle Of The Decade

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For years, McDonald's broken ice cream machines have been a problem. It even blew up as a meme on different social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit. In 2020, the fast-food chain itself started making fun of the issue. Six years ago, it already changed the recipe of the dessert, but the machines remain broken on often – all while soft serve is used in more than 60% of the desserts. During the St. Patrick's Day season, Shamrock Shakes can "boost shake sales as much as tenfold,” Wired stated. Per estimates, ice cream brings McDonald’s 3% of the revenue, which is over a whopping $7,650,000 a year. How is the company still on bad terms with its soft-serve?

First, let’s unpack how ice cream machines work. They include a hopper, where liquid ice cream travels to the barrel. There, it freezes. When the barrel spins, a scraper blade scrapes the ingredients off the sides and mixes them. In the end, ice cream is pushed out into the cone, and it’s ready to consume. You see, McDonald’s ice cream machines are different. Coming from ice cream machine manufacturer Taylor Company, they have two hoppers and two barrels, as well as a pump for a speedier process. They can make both milkshakes and ice cream, producing 10 cones in a minute. While cleaning, workers have to pass 11 steps – those who have gone through the process hundreds of times can't get it to work most of the time.

Tracing Broken Ice Cream Machines

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That said, cleaning the machines is already a terrible duty. Yet, workers have to clean them every two weeks because ice cream machines use a nightly pasteurization process. It’s a “modern marvel of hygiene and cost savings,” Wired stated – McDonald’s effectively reuses the leftovers. Unfortunately, this “modern marvel” slows down the process, too, as it always takes up four hours. That’s four hours out of 24 a day! If the McDonald’s broken ice cream machine actually breaks down, it’s even harder to fix. Employees or random tech professionals are not allowed to help. Only a Taylor-certified technician has to take time out of their week to come by and finish the process. And while there are other options besides Taylor, this machinery is the best in speed and quality.

So, what do you do when craving a McFlurry? Don’t take a random chance sitting in the drive-thru line to then drive away without a vanilla cone – there are apps and websites created to check if broken ice cream machines are in town. Called McBroken, the service is the veritable Google Maps of broken McDonald's ice cream machines. Thank software engineer Rashiq Zahid for the invention that he launched in 2020! The inventor himself was enraged after trekking to a McDonalds's in Berlin and being denied a McSundae. Soon enough. Zahid created a bot that uses McDonald's app to add McSundaes from every McDonald's location into its cart every 30 minutes.

If it’s not available, then the ice cream machine is probably broken – they show up as red dots on the McBroken map.

Sources: Mashed, NPR, The Takeout