The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly investigating why the ice cream machines at McDonald’s restaurants across the country always seem to be out of order.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration sent a letter to franchisees over the summer, requesting information about the ubiquitous machines that are supposed to serve up milkshakes, soft cones and the fast-food chain’s popular McFlurry on demand.
Instead, frustrated customers typically find the appliances either malfunctioning or broken, with the restaurant’s managers everywhere struggling to explain why.
McDonald’s is not in denial about the problematic machines — they must be cleaned every night, and if anything goes wrong in the process, a technician with a special set of skills has to be called in to fix it.
The widespread conundrum has the FTC questioning whether big manufacturers have been purposely preventing franchisees from hiring local-level repairmen to fix the machines, the Journal reported.
The FTC announced in July that it planned to step up policing efforts against manufacturers that restricted businesses, government agencies, workers and consumers to conduct machine repairs on their own.
In its letter, the federal antitrust agency told the franchisees the inquiry is in its early stages and “the existence of a preliminary investigation does not indicate the FTC or its staff have found any wrongdoing.”
The company that primarily makes McDonald’s ice cream machines, Kytch and Taylor Commercial Foodservice, told the Journal that it has not been contacted by the commission.
McDonald’s also issued a statement saying it has “no reason to believe we are the focus of an FTC investigation,” according to USA Today.
“Nothing is more important to us than delivering on our high standards for food quality and safety, which is why we work with fully vetted partners that can reliably provide safe solutions at scale,” the statement read.
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