McDonald's ice cream machine

In 1956, Ray Kroc, who would soon become the founding owner-operator of the McDonald's franchise business, made a handshake agreement with the Taylor Company to supply milkshake machines for the fast food chain as its exclusive supplier.

[6][non-primary source needed] In March 2017, McDonald's began allowing franchisees to purchase other machines made by Carpigiani, saying that they are faster to clean.

[7] Since 2019, Kytch has sold a device that intercepts the Taylor C602's internal communications to provide franchise owners with clearer error messages.

Kytch was endorsed by Tyler Gamble, a prominent member of the largest conference of McDonald's franchises, the National Owners Association, in October 2020, leading to a surge in sales.

A menu displaying the viscosity of the ingredients, the temperature of the glycol (used in the pasteurization process), and the machine's error messages is accessible by inputting a sequence of numbers.

[2] When the machine fails to work properly, it can be difficult to determine why, and the typical procedure is to simply repeat the pasteurization process to see if the problem goes away.

[16] iFixit identified overheating issues when creating liquid ice cream or shutting down the machines completely and accused Taylor of maliciously writing vague error codes to increase repair sales.

[9] In July 2021, the Federal Trade Commission began a preliminary investigation into Taylor over device repair and diagnostics restrictions as part of a Biden administration push for right-to-repair legislation.