Those are the same constraints that every other fast food chain has, yet only McDonalds appears to have this problem.

We don't have any evidence to support this claim though.

McDonald's appears to sell a lot more soft serve (by volume) than any other fast food chain. People go there specifically for McFlurries and others, and then leave disappointed when the machine is not working. Few, if any, go to Burger King or Arby's only for a soft serve product.

So, the issue appears more visible. But that's not evidence that McDonald's machines are less reliable. It could simply be they're the most used.

The Wendy's Frosty though?

McDonald's is nearly 6 times larger than Wendy's by number of stores, and double the revenue, with more than half of that revenue coming from franchise fees[1], if I'm reading this correctly.

[1] https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/sites/corp/nfl/p...

To be quite frank, McDonalds seems to hire a lower grade of worker than the rest, or at least their workers perform worse than the rest because they're paid poorly and overworked, or for some other reason...

Point is, they can't even get "no pickles" right.

I'll take anything over the cheese quesadilla, except they forgot the cheese, that I got at a new Chipotle location.

You can't make this generalization for a franchise business.

McDonalds is a franchise, so "McDonalds" doesn't hire the workers. Each independent franchise owner does. There are some franchise owners who own numerous locations across an area, so sometimes the same party is to blame for quality and hiring practices. For sure some hire really bottom of the barrel, but I've been to some where the workers were top notch. I remember one lady that was so smart, helpful, and cheerful that I wanted to hire and train her! It all depends on the individual franchise owner's philosophy/approach.

That's why a lot of fast food chains don't offer soft serve. At McDonald's scale, their peers that do would be KFC (only some locations?), Burger King, and Wendy's.

For reference, here's a first person report from one of the previous times this was brought up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26938854

Burger King appears to also use Taylor equipment, although not the combo 2-in-1, do-it-all model that McDonald's does.

Wendy's uses a custom machine built by Kappus for their Frosties. [0] [1]

[0] History https://www.wendys.com/blog/history-of-frosty

[1] How It's Made https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oorX3mHgHQs&t=95s

Somehow Dairy Queen is able to serve ice cream ok

Then it DQ must be using alien technology. Just as in the UFO debate, there is no other possible explanation, therefore it must be aliens.

And I would hope that Dairy Queen, a company founded in 1940 to sell soft-serve ice cream (original formula 1938), is better at selling soft-serve ice cream than McDonald's.

Also, they're a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway since 1998.

There is a detailed video about it. Ultimately, conclusion seems like it is collusion between the two corporates to get profit at the expense of franchise owners

The REAL Reason McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken by Johnny Harris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDEtSlqJC4

> McDonald's is trying to run an industrial volume process with ingredients subject to contamination and spoilage

You're getting at the heart of it. McDonalds used to use very simple Taylor machines that were very reliable. The only problem was they had to be taken apart, cleaned, and sanitized at the end of every day. That required an extra employee at closing for about an hour, and another employee the next morning to put the machine back together. This wasn't difficult, but it wasn't totally obvious either so it did require an employee who had been trained on how to do it.

McDonald's wanted to save the training and the $10-$20 of labor, and a few dollars of product waste that this was costing them every day, so they asked Taylor to develop a machine that didn't have to be taken apart and sanitized every day. Taylor did that, and the machine got a lot more complicated. It heats itself up to a temperature that will kill bacteria, then cools back down. If there is a power glitch or fault or for any reason that cycle is interrupted, the machine locks out and has to be "repaired."

Also, as part of the daily cleaning and re-assembly of the old machines, all the O-rings and seals would be inspected and lubricated and replaced if they were cut, worn out, etc. Now that doesn't happen so you get more failures of seals, leaks, etc. which can also shut the machine down.