Day 129 - 25 May 95 - Page 07
1 safety role.
2
3 Q. Did the Company take a particular interest in matters of
4 food safety prior to having a separate department?
5 A. Certainly back to my days in QA, I remember that all of
6 the products' specifications that were products that were
7 likely to, from time to time, contain pathogens, all had
8 very tight specifications on the sort of levels that we set
9 with the suppliers. So, yes, it was something that was
10 recognised and we spoke to suppliers about, and that there
11 were standards for.
12
13 Q. When you had responsibility in this area, were you ever
14 made aware of an outbreak of food poisoning that occurred
15 in Oregon and Michigan to people as a result of eating
16 McDonald's hamburgers?
17 A. When I worked in Quality Assurance, I cannot remember
18 being advised.
19
20 Q. Do you know about that incident?
21 A. I believe it was one to do with E.coli in the States,
22 but I do not know any details of it.
23
24 Q. Do you not think it would have been useful to have been
25 informed of the details about that, so that you could put
26 any knowledge gleaned from that incident into effect in
27 this country?
28 A. Not knowing the details, I do not know whether it would
29 have been worthwhile knowing about it, but also the sort of
30 probability of finding pathogens in the States is not
31 necessarily the same as it is here in the UK.
32
33 Q. But if pathogens are found, then the sort of action you can
34 take to ensure that they are destroyed would be the same,
35 would it not?
36 A. Not necessarily because even now the Government
37 guidelines, for example, for internal temperatures for meat
38 in the States are different than here in the UK, so there
39 is not agreement worldwide on what should be done.
40
41 Q. If it was the case that the report into the Oregon incident
42 found that uneven grill temperatures was part of the
43 problem, that would have been useful for you to know in
44 this country, would it not?
45 A. It depends really what sort of grill was being used.
46 It might not necessarily have been anything to do with the
47 sort of grill that we were using over here at the time.
48 Not knowing the detail, I really could not say.
49
50 Q. It would have been a pointer to you for the kind of things
51 you would want to be advising store managers to look out
52 for in this country?
53 A. I really do not know, not knowing the detail.
54
55 Q. But you would never have known about whether it was useful
56 information unless somebody had brought it to your
57 attention?
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I really think you have gone on to comment
60 now. If Mrs. Barnes had been prepared to pass a view,
