{"id":18499,"date":"2022-03-03T17:41:06","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T17:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/03\/03\/kytch-tried-to-fix-mcdonalds-busted-ice-cream-machines-now-its-suing-the-chain-for-900-million\/"},"modified":"2022-03-03T17:41:06","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T17:41:06","slug":"kytch-tried-to-fix-mcdonalds-busted-ice-cream-machines-now-its-suing-the-chain-for-900-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/03\/03\/kytch-tried-to-fix-mcdonalds-busted-ice-cream-machines-now-its-suing-the-chain-for-900-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Kytch Tried to Fix McDonald’s Busted Ice Cream Machines, Now It’s Suing the Chain for $900 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Anyone who has ever been to a McDonald\u2019s knows that asking for ice cream is a recipe for disappointment. The restaurant\u2019s soft serve machines are so notoriously finicky that it\u2019s become a meme, and there\u2019s even a website that tracks ice cream outages<\/a>. A startup called Kytch hoped to fix this nationwide nightmare with a small internet-connected device that plugged into the machines. Now, Wired reports<\/a> Kytch is suing McDonald\u2019s for $900 million after it told franchise owners to remove the devices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At any given moment, about 10 percent of all McDonald\u2019s ice cream machines in the US are broken. That number is higher in some markets like Seattle (about one-third) and New York (a quarter). Clearly, there\u2019s a problem, and it\u2019s one that Kytch wanted to address while making a tidy profit. <\/span>Kytch launched in 2019, and things were apparently going quite well at first. In 2020, the company reached about 500 customers, and its sales were doubling every quarter. The device reads and interprets data from the machines, manufactured for McDonald\u2019s by a company called Taylor. Kytch then routes the information to an app that can tell franchise owners when something is about to break and spoil your desert.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The McDonald\u2019s mothership stepped in with a November 2020 email to franchise owners, telling them to remove the Kytch devices. In the message, McDonald\u2019s alleged that Kytch was intercepting the company\u2019s \u201cconfidential information.\u201d Yes, confidential ice cream information. More seriously, McDonald\u2019s claimed that the Kytch module could cause injury. Kytch believes these claims are \u201cfalse and defamatory,\u201d and that\u2019s why it filed the lawsuit. It says McDonald\u2019s claims of safety concerns are just a smokescreen for anti-competitive practices. However, the McDonald\u2019s franchise agreement gives the company a lot of say in how its restaurants are run.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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McDonald\u2019s has held firm that its concern is merely a question of safety. It requires all hardware to be thoroughly vetted before making its way into restaurants, but Kytch says its product was certified to meet Underwriter\u2019s Laboratory and Intertek standards, both of which are standard in the industry. Kytch also says that McDonald\u2019s told other restaurant chains like Burger King to avoid its product, and that Taylor worked with a franchise owner to obtain and reverse-engineer one of its devices. McDonald\u2019s is testing a new Taylor machine in some locations with similar features to the Kytch add-on. <\/span><\/p>\n

Any fight with a company this size will be a long one, but Kytch believes it will find a nefarious purpose behind the safety claims. Regardless of the outcome, it\u2019s probably not going to get $900 million.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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