The McDonald’s McFlurry is an extremely popular item for the restaurant, despite the fact that its ice cream machines are notoriously always broken. Apparently, they’re extremely difficult to clean, and their automated cleaning program runs for four hours — there’s even an 11-step manual process that must be completed beforehand (via The Wall Street Journal).
One McDonald’s worker shared a photo on Reddit of the new reusable spindle, along with directions for washing, rinsing, and sanitizing them every four hours. They also pointed out that, along with using multiple reusable spindles a day, they’re also now required to give customers a plastic spoon wrapped in plastic with each McFlurry. “‘Saving the environment’ … come on,” they wrote. A separate thread from the McDonald’s subreddit was filled with chatter about the new change, with many reporting that other countries already left the hollow spoons behind a while ago, with unhappy results. “Already gone to wooden spoons in Canada. Makes a McFlurry about 30% less enjoyable,” one person commented. “[Yeah,] those have also been in Europe for a while. Not properly mixed and eww woody taste,” said another.
McDonald’s in some parts of the world don’t even have ice cream machines, meaning they had no hollow spoons to begin with. If you order a McFlurry in Australia, you’ll likely see it mixed by hand, which means most of the toppings just sit on top. With this phaseout, you just might see more unmixed McFlurries.