More than three years have passed since McDonald’s sent an email to thousands of restaurant owners around the world abruptly severing the future of their restaurants. A three-person startup called Kytch— and it’s probably one of McDonald’s best chances to fix its notoriously broken ice cream machines.
Until then, Kitch has installed a popular Internet-connected gadget made by McDonald’s equipment partner Taylor Corp., designed to attach to the notoriously fragile McFlurry dispensers for soft-serve ice cream, to McDonald’s restaurant owners. It was sold in A Kytch device essentially hacks into the internals of an ice cream machine, monitors its operation, and sends diagnostic data over the internet to the owner or administrator so that the ice cream machine can continue to operate. However, despite Kytch’s efforts to resolve Golden Arches ice cream’s difficult-to-resolve issues, a November 2020 McDonald’s email issued a statement stating that Kytch is threatening the franchise and that it poses a threat to the safety of its staff. Warned merchants not to use Kytch. Sales essentially dried up overnight, Kitch said.
After years of litigation, ice cream hacking entrepreneurs have now unearthed evidence showing that soft serve ice cream machine maker Taylor helped design McDonald’s Kitch’s murder email. It brought startups to their knees, not out of safety concerns. In a concerted effort to undermine potential competitors. And, as Kitch now explains, Taylor’s alleged orders came all the way from above.
Kitch filed a new, unredacted motion for summary judgment Wednesday in his lawsuit against Taylor for trade defamation, tortious interference and other claims. The new complaint, which replaces the August redaction, cites internal emails that Taylor disclosed during the discovery phase of the lawsuit and that were secretly opened over the summer. The motion specifically focuses on one email from Timothy Fitzgerald, CEO of Taylor’s parent company Middleby, stating that either Middleby or McDonald’s would discourage Kitch from using the device. seems to be suggesting that a communication be sent to McDonald’s franchise owners for this purpose.
“I don’t know if anything can be done to slow down the franchise community with other solutions,” Fitzgerald wrote on October 17, 2020. “We don’t know what communications will or will come from either McD or Midd.”
Of course, Kytch’s co-founders interpret “other solutions” in their legal filing to mean their own product. In fact, Fitzgerald’s message was sent in an email thread that also included Middleby’s then-COO David Brewer. He had previously wondered whether Middleby could buy Mr. Kitch instead. Another Middleby executive responded to Mr. Fitzgerald on October 17, saying that Mr. Taylor and McDonald’s had already met the day before to discuss sending a message to franchisees about McDonald’s lack of support for Mr. Kitch. I wrote that it was.
But Kytch co-founder Jeremy O’Sullivan claims that Fitzgerald’s emails prove Taylor’s intent to thwart potential competitors, and that Kytch is also legally required to do so. Alleged in the complaint. “This is the smoking gun,” O’Sullivan says of the email. “He is planning our destruction.”
Although Mr. Fitzgerald’s email does not actually order anyone to take any action against Mr. Kitch, the company’s complaint alleges that Mr. Taylor played a key role in what happened next. are doing. This is a “vague but direct message to our people,” argues Kytch’s other co-founder, Melissa Nelson. “It’s like a mafia boss giving his team coded instructions to hit someone.”
November 2, 2020, just over two weeks after Mr. Fitzgerald’s open-ended suggestion that “communications” to franchisees, perhaps from McDonald’s or Middleby, could “delay” the adoption of “other solutions.” MacDonald said: sent a large number of emails Restaurant owners were warned not to use Kytch’s products.
The email states that the Kytch gadget “gives you complete access to all aspects of your equipment’s controllers and sensitive data.” This means Taylor’s and McDonald’s data, not restaurant owner data. It states that it “poses a potentially very serious safety risk to crew members and technicians attempting to clean or repair machinery” and, finally, could cause “serious personal injury.” The email concludes with a warning in italics and bold. “McDonald’s strongly recommends that you remove Kytch devices from all machines and discontinue use.”
