A company that created a solution to fix McDonald’s infamously broken ice cream machines is suing the fast-food giant for $900 million.
Kytch, a start-up company, developed a gadget to assist repair ice cream machines and sold it to 500 McDonald’s locations. However, according to WIRED, McDonald’s executives allegedly ordered the removal of these gadgets in November 2020. According to the lawsuit’s emails, McDonald’s removed the gadgets from its computers because they broke their warranties, intercepted “confidential information,” and posed a danger of “serious human injury.”
Kytch has seen a drop in sales after the gadgets were removed. In response, the small business filed a complaint on March 1 accusing McDonald’s of deceptive advertising and improperly interfering with its customer contracts. The restaurant business is also accused of defaming the Kytch name, according to the lawsuit.
Cofounder Melissa Nelson told WIRED: “They’ve tarnished our name. They scared off our customers and ruined our business. They were anti-competitive. They lied about a product that they said would be released.
“McDonald’s had every reason to know that Kytch was safe and didn’t have any issues. It was not dangerous, like they claimed. And so we’re suing them.”
Kytch’s phone-sized device would intercept the ice cream machines’ internal communications and report back any issues to a web or smartphone device, which one restaurant owner told WIRED saved “thousands of dollars a month”.
Kytch also claimed that McDonald’s used its device to reverse engineer and developer a new ice cream machine that uses its technology.
McDonald’s told WIRED: “Nothing is more important to us than food quality and safety, which is why all equipment in McDonald’s restaurants is thoroughly vetted before it’s approved for use.
“After we learned that Kytch’s unapproved device was being tested by some of our franchisees, we held a call to better understand what it was and subsequently communicated a potential safety concern to franchisees. There’s no conspiracy here.”
The result of the lawsuit will likely unfold over the next several months and years.