Day 296 - 07 Nov 96 - Page 22


     
     1
     2   MS. STEEL:   I think we are talking about cravings, anyway, a
     3        kind of addiction.  The point is that Mr. Beavers himself
     4        admitted that he got "a craving for McDonald's hamburgers
     5        or French fries from time to time".
     6
     7   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am not sure it did not all arise
     8        originally, because I remember when it arose in the autumn
     9        of 1993 I think the suspicion might have been that there
    10        was a craving in some medical kind of sense as opposed to
    11        acquiring a strong taste for.
    12
    13   MS. STEEL:   Some circles do view that as a medical matter.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, but it seemed to me that what you were
    16        batting for was the latter rather than the former.
    17
    18   MS. STEEL:   I mean, to us it was just -- I mean, people talk
    19        about a sweet tooth and so on, and to us it is just so
    20        obvious that it defied common sense that McDonald's had
    21        even complained about it.  Anyway, that quote from
    22        Mr. Beavers was on day 123, page 48, line 51.
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    25
    26   MS. STEEL:   Can I just say there is a bit of overlap; some of
    27        the things I am referring to, they do relate to advertising
    28        as well.
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   I appreciate that.  In fact, I have made one
    31        or two notes of one or two of the things Mr. Beavers said
    32        in relation to advertising.
    33
    34   MS. STEEL:   Right.  I will try not to be too repetitive.
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It does not matter.  If things have been
    37        taken fairly shortly, just sort of marking them out, as it
    38        were, it does not matter if you say them in more than one
    39        context.
    40
    41   MS. STEEL:   Right.  Okay.  We have seen McDonald's own
    42        documents from the United States that show that 77 percent
    43        of customer visits to their stores, i.e. three out of every
    44        four people who come through the doors, are from heavy
    45        users who eat at McDonald's an average of three times a
    46        week.  Mr. Fairgrieve agreed that such customers were the
    47        type of people who were most likely to also eat at other
    48        fast food outlets and obviously that has implications on
    49        their diet -- sorry, that has implications for the evidence
    50        about the make-up of people's diet who eat at McDonald's.
    51        (Pause)
    52
    53        We heard from Mr. Green, McDonald's senior vice president
    54        of marketing in the USA, that 11 percent of visits to
    55        McDonald's in the USA were from super heavy users who ate
    56        there four or more times per week.  And Mr. Green said that
    57        the company's marketing strategy was to target heavy users
    58        to increase their frequency of visits, so not only are
    59        there concerns about the fact that people are eating at
    60        McDonald's so frequently, but, on top of that, there is

Prev Next Index