The last year I started to work in a McDonald's close to my house, I worked for 6 months and I learned why McDonald's is so damn expensive in my country and how they operate in such a way that almost looks like a scam. in this series, I will show how McDonald's works in Venezuela, this doesn't mean that McDonald's is a bad brand
Today I want to talk about the Ice Cream
Good things first. You'll never get sick from eating McDonald's ice cream
Although sometimes the ice cream could taste a little bit sour the machine is designed to pasteurize the mixture before it goes to the chamber responsible for turning it into ice cream, that's why the machine break when there's a lot of demand. Even when I hate a lot of things about the ice cream and the way they operate I guarantee you that no other ice cream is going to be safer, for what I know the McDonald's ice cream machine is the only one with the patent to pasteurize the mixture
The ice cream represents more than 70% of the daily transactions of McDonald's, or at least that's the case in the one I was working on, the ice cream is indeed real ice cream, but there is a lot wrong with it
Even when McDonald's is just serving vanilla ice cream - in Venezuela- they use at least 5 different types of mixture, and just one of those mixtures is from a real ice cream franchise, the other 4 were just mostly flavored milk so there is no guarantee that the client is getting a quality product
Avoid cones!
If you are dying for some ice cream my recommendation is to avoid cones. In Mc'Donald's the personnel is supposed to grab the cone with the wrapping but most of the time they will just take the cone and wrap it later, and because McDonald's can become a clusterfuck sometimes it's normal for someone to grab money or food and then grab the cone. Also, you should consider adding something extra to the ice cream so you are sure that they are making it at the moment, we used to put rejected ice cream in the potato's fridge to deliver it later to another customer
You are buying 40% air
No shit here, you are buying a lot of air. When you ask for an ice cream in a legit ice cream store the mixture is homemade and is compacted, there is little to no air there
In Mcdonald's the ice cream leaving the machine is 40% air and 60% mixture, if you don't believe me, let it melt in the cup and stir it a bit, the ice cream is not going to fill half the cup
Apart from that, the standard method to prepare the ice cream is to let the machine spin 3 or 4 times and no more than that, and the ice cream is never filling the cup. The ice cream is really gluey so they put the ice cream on the walls of the cup and after the determined number of spins they cover the big hole in the center with a tip of ice cream, and this is the same for every single type of ice cream
Cheese
The ice cream mixture starts to ferment really fast, even inside the machine. I remember one day that the kitchen was smelling like cheese, at some point I opened the machine and the walls of the main chamber were covered with cheese. I don't think there's a problem with that, but it really changes the smell of the ice cream and I think it can change the flavor a bit, I don't know if it's hazardous
Conclusion
If I'm going just for the ice cream I'll rather buy some on the market or in a legit ice cream store, I know in the 1st world things might be a little bit different, but the process to make the ice cream are the same in the whole world, so I'll rather avoid the ice cream
Are they safe to eat? Yes, you're not getting sick from the ice cream
Is it a scam? I think this is a personal opinion, McDonald's fans will say that everything is fine
But one thing is sure, they are overpriced, and I really think they're boring, but it's your money and your choice
And by the way, the topping containers are filled up in the kitchen just next to the grill, and the person in charge of filling them is usually cooking too. Remember that if you ever bite some meat in your ice cream
In the next post, I will talk about the fried products, they have a lot of pros and cons