McDonald’s Ice Cream Woes Have Inspired Memes, Mockery and Now, a Federal Lawsuit

Then, in November 2020, the notices declaring their product unsafe went out, he said.

“If their goal was to destroy Kytch, they’ve succeeded,” Mr. O’Sullivan said.

Tim FitzGerald, chief executive of the Middleby Corporation, which owns the Taylor Company, denied that that was the goal.

“We’re not in business to put other companies out of business,” he said. “The product had not been tested or validated working in conjunction with the food safety protocols of a Taylor machine.”

This month, Kytch’s founders filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s in U.S. District Court in Delaware seeking $900 million in damages. Ms. Nelson and Mr. O’Sullivan say the number reflects damages and what their company would have been worth had McDonald’s not scared off current and prospective customers with the alarming notices.

McDonald’s said that Kytch’s claims were “meritless.”

“McDonald’s owes it to our customers, crew and franchisees to maintain our rigorous safety standards and work with fully vetted suppliers in that pursuit,” the company said in a statement this week.

Kytch said that at the same time that McDonald’s was trying to undermine the product, the chain and Taylor were holding regular meetings with franchise owners who had bought Kytch’s program to figure out how to copy the technology, according to the lawsuit. Kytch separately sued Taylor in Alameda County Superior Court in California.

Last week, a judge in that court denied Kytch’s request for an injunction against Taylor, which has been developing a similar product. The judge, Michael Markman, said there was no evidence that Taylor’s system “was built with or incorporates any Kytch trade secret.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/12/business/mcdonald-kytch-ice-cream-lawsuit.html