Used to manage Wendy's. The Frosty machine was a complete pain in the ass to clean "the right way". I have to imagine that the ice cream machines at Mickey D's are about the same. If not cleaned 'by the book' you get bacteria problems almost immediately. I don't picture too many brainless 17 year old minimum wage employees taking the time and effort.
One my first jobs at 15 years old was at a Burger King. I remember within a week or so the manager assigned me the job of taking apart and cleaning the ice cream machine because she didn't have anyone else there "technical" enough to do it.
They literally have a parts holder with numbers telling you which pieces to take off in order. Lots of o-rings, etc. Not at all difficult, but for some reason a 15 year old was the most "technical" person they had at the time.
I think I quit after about 3 months. Only food related job I ever took.
Never been to a Dairy Queen that had problems with their ice cream machine and they probably sell way more than McDonald's or Wendy's. They should probably take some lessons from them.
Not sure how they do it at McDix or Wendy's, but at DQ a machine would be cleaned about once every two or three days (they had a lot of machines, they would rotate which ones would get cleaned). The machines themselves are, to my understanding, insulated as well as refrigerated, so bacteria shouldn't be an immediate problem. Maybe the McD machines are just poor quality or not as easily cleaned? IDK.
But once every few days, the bags of liquid (they were legally not allowed to call it ice cream lmao) would be taken off, and cleaning solution would be run through the machine, and the cleaning solution would be left in all night. The next morning, the cleaning solution would be flushed with clean water, and then the machines were good to operate again.
I obviously can't speak for every DQ, but the one I worked at was very clean.
They're self cleaning now. They basically cook themselves clean, like an oven's self-cleaning functionality. They realized that trusting min wage employees to put stuff together even with braindead instructions, was still too risky.
Used to manage Wendy's. The Frosty machine was a complete pain in the ass to clean "the right way". I have to imagine that the ice cream machines at Mickey D's are about the same. If not cleaned 'by the book' you get bacteria problems almost immediately. I don't picture too many brainless 17 year old minimum wage employees taking the time and effort.
One my first jobs at 15 years old was at a Burger King. I remember within a week or so the manager assigned me the job of taking apart and cleaning the ice cream machine because she didn't have anyone else there "technical" enough to do it.
They literally have a parts holder with numbers telling you which pieces to take off in order. Lots of o-rings, etc. Not at all difficult, but for some reason a 15 year old was the most "technical" person they had at the time.
I think I quit after about 3 months. Only food related job I ever took.
Never been to a Dairy Queen that had problems with their ice cream machine and they probably sell way more than McDonald's or Wendy's. They should probably take some lessons from them.
Not sure how they do it at McDix or Wendy's, but at DQ a machine would be cleaned about once every two or three days (they had a lot of machines, they would rotate which ones would get cleaned). The machines themselves are, to my understanding, insulated as well as refrigerated, so bacteria shouldn't be an immediate problem. Maybe the McD machines are just poor quality or not as easily cleaned? IDK.
But once every few days, the bags of liquid (they were legally not allowed to call it ice cream lmao) would be taken off, and cleaning solution would be run through the machine, and the cleaning solution would be left in all night. The next morning, the cleaning solution would be flushed with clean water, and then the machines were good to operate again.
I obviously can't speak for every DQ, but the one I worked at was very clean.
They're self cleaning now. They basically cook themselves clean, like an oven's self-cleaning functionality. They realized that trusting min wage employees to put stuff together even with braindead instructions, was still too risky.
Maybe some managers think they have more important things to get done and deliberately leave the machines off?
Not to me. Still plenty of things to eat that wouldn't tie up an employee who might do a bad job and make people sick.