McDonald's French Fries Are Made With Technology That Feels Like A Sci-Fi Movie - Tasting Table

"All McDonald's fries are first processed in a factory. They start as raw potatoes and are peeled, cut, seasoned, partially fried, frozen, and packaged. Along the way, they undergo quality control checks. The french fries run down conveyor belts in the factory where optical scanning machines inspect each one."

"Aside from an initial inspection in which workers cut away obvious blemishes, no other human hands touch the potatoes from the time they arrive at the factory until they are shipped out. Machines wash, peel, cut, and inspect them to achieve consistency at a much higher speed than human workers could ever match."

"To achieve precision cuts, whole potatoes are fired with a pressurized water cannon at up to 75 miles per hour into a grid of cutting blades that slice them into shoestring fries. The waste water moves at such a high speed that a factory employee who did an AMA on Reddit said a coworker once got sucked under by it and had to be rescued."

McDonald's fries are processed entirely in factories by suppliers including J.R. Simplot, Lamb Weston, and McCain. Raw potatoes are peeled, cut, seasoned, partially fried, frozen, and packaged with minimal human contact. Optical scanning machines inspect thousands of fries per minute, removing any with visible blemishes. Potatoes are cut using pressurized water cannons firing at up to 75 miles per hour into cutting blade grids to create uniform shoestring fries. This highly automated process ensures consistency and quality at speeds far exceeding manual production capabilities.

Read at Tasting Table