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What's the over/under on how many franchises will now resume selling ice cream?

BoorishBears 2y ago
I think they're going to stop selling ice cream period as a company. If it was important to their bottom line McDonalds would have done something as a collective rather than having individuals enter this fight for back-channel repair options. At some point they'll probably have their main contracts expire and stop dealing with the mess altogether.
- davidczech 2y ago
  Isn't the same machine used for milkshakes? That's kind of staple of burger joints.
  - wokwokwok 2y ago
    Yeah, but the point is that MacDonalds obviously doesn’t want to sell icecream. Maybe it’s low margin. Maybe cleaning is expensive. Maybe it helps having the promise of cheap ice cream but “sorry not right now” leading customers to buy other (more expensive) items. It’s not an incompetent organisation. If they wanted the machines to work, they would work. They don’t. So… if anything changes out of this, it will be to keep the status quo; people coming in and not buying cheap ice creams.
    - bastawhiz 2y ago
      McDonald's also has no problem phasing out items from its menu. It does so with regularity. Why keep something on the menu that it doesn't want to sell? It either wants to sell it or it doesn't want to sell it.
      - dangus 2y ago
        Ice Cream products would be one of the last things they phase out. First, the ice cream machine produces multiple products: milkshakes, McFlurries, hot fudge sundaes, and ice cream cones. Second, dessert is an upsell and driver of APV. If you lack dessert options you basically leave money on the table from customers who are willing to buy dessert. Third, the ice cream machine, despite its problems, is a pretty small and manageable piece of equipment. It doesn't need an employee to babysit it like a fryer or flat top. The only thing simpler at a McDonald's is the Apple Pie heater. If you don't believe me, find a burger chain that doesn't have ice cream on the menu. Wendy's, Burger King, Shake Shack, Steak 'N Shake, In-N-Out, Whataburger, Culver's, Carl's Jr/Hardee's, seriously, which restaurant that serves burgers doesn't have ice cream/milkshakes?
    - samatman 2y ago
      The original McDonald's menu had nine items. One was a milkshake. This is never going to happen.
    - dangus 2y ago
      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://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/clay-christensens-milkshake-marketing https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/clay-christensens-milkshake-marke... They can be eaten easily in the car, can be savored slowly over time on a long commute, and are relatively filling and inexpensive. There are a lot of people who actually consume them earlier in the day before work because of those characteristics. You'll notice that basically every burger chain offers milkshakes, and some even emphasize the shakes more than the food, like Shake Shack, Dairy Queen (which has quite good fast food burgers and food if you aren't aware), and Steak 'n Shake. They all do this because it's an extremely profitable product and a driver of high APV. The ice cream machines at McDonald's also deliver multiple products: McFlurry, hot fudge sundae, milkshakes, and ice cream cones. One small machine that dispenses vanilla soft serve can make a whole bunch of products.
      - wokwokwok 2y ago
        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 MacDonalds with a basic inability to maintain infrastructure. Imagine if that was true of fryers? Or microwaves? That almost never happens. It’s clearly not a technical problem. The only way that you could justify the continued maintenance failure you see is if the benefits of a working machine were negligible at best. Perhaps what you say might be true in general but in this specific circumstance I think you’re applying an “in general…” kind of logic (like “in general more unit tests are better…”) which doesn’t ring true here, to me.
        dangus 2y ago
        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.
- raverbashing 2y ago
  You're assuming McD cares about anything but how much money they can get from their franchisees next quarter "You're fixing our crappy machine yourself (translation: figure out code XYZ means it was overfilled or that AYZ means it froze and needs to be flushed) instead of hiring a service technician where we make some more money on top? We can't allow that!" McDs are one of the worse franchises to own. Very tightly controlled with minuscule profit margins I'm sure a lot of older franchisees want nothing but sell their businesses, especially in areas with lowering traffic
- talldayo 2y ago
  God damn. Antitrust comes up and HN insists that businesses are just going to pull out of the EU any day now. McDonalds is forced to start fixing their ice cream machines and now you want to tell us that they'll refuse to serve ice cream out of petty anger. Do we just assume every business is run by the zombie of Steve Jobs? I genuinely have no idea where this libertarian extremist sentiment is coming from.
  - BoorishBears 2y ago
    You're reading way too deep into this, good luck with all that.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      No, I think you're reading too far into this and trying to present a nonsense scare-story to make this seem like a net-zero accomplishment. Here's a question for you economics geniuses out there; if McDonalds wasn't interested in serving ice cream to customers then why did they buy machines for thousands of franchises to do that exact thing? And even if you're correct - the secondhand customers of the machines McDonalds would sell would directly benefit from having parts made available. Selling their machines after the repair process is made cheap is an incoherent line of logic that only tracks if you want people to fear over-regulation.

I think they're going to stop selling ice cream period as a company. If it was important to their bottom line McDonalds would have done something as a collective rather than having individuals enter this fight for back-channel repair options. At some point they'll probably have their main contracts expire and stop dealing with the mess altogether.

davidczech 2y ago
Isn't the same machine used for milkshakes? That's kind of staple of burger joints.
- wokwokwok 2y ago
  Yeah, but the point is that MacDonalds obviously doesn’t want to sell icecream. Maybe it’s low margin. Maybe cleaning is expensive. Maybe it helps having the promise of cheap ice cream but “sorry not right now” leading customers to buy other (more expensive) items. It’s not an incompetent organisation. If they wanted the machines to work, they would work. They don’t. So… if anything changes out of this, it will be to keep the status quo; people coming in and not buying cheap ice creams.
  - bastawhiz 2y ago
    McDonald's also has no problem phasing out items from its menu. It does so with regularity. Why keep something on the menu that it doesn't want to sell? It either wants to sell it or it doesn't want to sell it.
    - dangus 2y ago
      Ice Cream products would be one of the last things they phase out. First, the ice cream machine produces multiple products: milkshakes, McFlurries, hot fudge sundaes, and ice cream cones. Second, dessert is an upsell and driver of APV. If you lack dessert options you basically leave money on the table from customers who are willing to buy dessert. Third, the ice cream machine, despite its problems, is a pretty small and manageable piece of equipment. It doesn't need an employee to babysit it like a fryer or flat top. The only thing simpler at a McDonald's is the Apple Pie heater. If you don't believe me, find a burger chain that doesn't have ice cream on the menu. Wendy's, Burger King, Shake Shack, Steak 'N Shake, In-N-Out, Whataburger, Culver's, Carl's Jr/Hardee's, seriously, which restaurant that serves burgers doesn't have ice cream/milkshakes?
  - samatman 2y ago
    The original McDonald's menu had nine items. One was a milkshake. This is never going to happen.
  - dangus 2y ago
    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://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/clay-christensens-milkshake-marketing https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/clay-christensens-milkshake-marke... They can be eaten easily in the car, can be savored slowly over time on a long commute, and are relatively filling and inexpensive. There are a lot of people who actually consume them earlier in the day before work because of those characteristics. You'll notice that basically every burger chain offers milkshakes, and some even emphasize the shakes more than the food, like Shake Shack, Dairy Queen (which has quite good fast food burgers and food if you aren't aware), and Steak 'n Shake. They all do this because it's an extremely profitable product and a driver of high APV. The ice cream machines at McDonald's also deliver multiple products: McFlurry, hot fudge sundae, milkshakes, and ice cream cones. One small machine that dispenses vanilla soft serve can make a whole bunch of products.
    - wokwokwok 2y ago
      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 MacDonalds with a basic inability to maintain infrastructure. Imagine if that was true of fryers? Or microwaves? That almost never happens. It’s clearly not a technical problem. The only way that you could justify the continued maintenance failure you see is if the benefits of a working machine were negligible at best. Perhaps what you say might be true in general but in this specific circumstance I think you’re applying an “in general…” kind of logic (like “in general more unit tests are better…”) which doesn’t ring true here, to me.
      - dangus 2y ago
        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.
raverbashing 2y ago
You're assuming McD cares about anything but how much money they can get from their franchisees next quarter "You're fixing our crappy machine yourself (translation: figure out code XYZ means it was overfilled or that AYZ means it froze and needs to be flushed) instead of hiring a service technician where we make some more money on top? We can't allow that!" McDs are one of the worse franchises to own. Very tightly controlled with minuscule profit margins I'm sure a lot of older franchisees want nothing but sell their businesses, especially in areas with lowering traffic
talldayo 2y ago
God damn. Antitrust comes up and HN insists that businesses are just going to pull out of the EU any day now. McDonalds is forced to start fixing their ice cream machines and now you want to tell us that they'll refuse to serve ice cream out of petty anger. Do we just assume every business is run by the zombie of Steve Jobs? I genuinely have no idea where this libertarian extremist sentiment is coming from.
- BoorishBears 2y ago
  You're reading way too deep into this, good luck with all that.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    No, I think you're reading too far into this and trying to present a nonsense scare-story to make this seem like a net-zero accomplishment. Here's a question for you economics geniuses out there; if McDonalds wasn't interested in serving ice cream to customers then why did they buy machines for thousands of franchises to do that exact thing? And even if you're correct - the secondhand customers of the machines McDonalds would sell would directly benefit from having parts made available. Selling their machines after the repair process is made cheap is an incoherent line of logic that only tracks if you want people to fear over-regulation.