Day 287 - 25 Oct 96 - Page 18
1 terms of both soya beans and soya bean meal? " Answer,
2 "The numbers for soya bean would more than indicate that,
3 yes", which, we would say, completely destroys the
4 plaintiffs' opportunistic line that we do not have to worry
5 about the soya bean meal because it is only some kind of
6 by-product and not relevant. If that is true, why have a
7 policy on it, you might argue. He recognised it as a major
8 contributory factor to the increasing export potential.
9 Then he says, "We never had a policy on soya beans", and
10 that is that same page 19, line 38.
11
12 Then on page 20, line 20, he was asked about this policy
13 that he did not know about and he said, "You asked me a
14 question whether any soya bean is used in the production of
15 cattle, and of course it is in a very small quantity." He
16 goes on, and I think that is a recognition that soya bean
17 is a standard feed around the world. I am not saying every
18 country, but it is widespread, and it is so obvious that he
19 would not be expected to identify which countries. I think
20 that is his evidence.
21
22 As far as Schumm is concerned, Schumm, as far as I can make
23 out, worked for Sudfleisch, McDonald's sole supplier in
24 Germany. I don't know if I am wrong about that. It says,
25 in his statement, expert opinion, it says something like
26 Department for Research Development and Consultation and in
27 brackets, it has 'logos, Sudfleisch, Freischland'. So I
28 presume that he works for Sudfleisch, so he worked for
29 McDonald's supplier, so he is not an independent expert, he
30 is part of the... He worked for the... Not only is he not
31 independent, but he is part of the chain of causation of
32 the problem, so it is extremely unlikely in a consultant's,
33 in a commissioned, report for McDonald's he is going to
34 make any concessions, except for extremely reluctantly; and
35 I think, therefore, his conclusions are very poor quality.
36
37 But his information we are not challenging, in terms of the
38 figures he is using. He clearly understands the statistics
39 regarding the industry. But there is no indication,
40 anyway, of any understanding or expertise of any kind
41 relating to the effect that the beef industry would be
42 having in Brazil. He can only really talk about the soya
43 usage in Germany. So, when he concludes that although --
44 and, do not forget, he concentrates entirely on cows. For
45 example, even if only two percent of McDonald's beef
46 supplies in Germany come from steers or bulls, if each of
47 those steers or bulls consumes 50 times as much or a
48 hundred times as much -- we do not know -- as a cow (which
49 he says it is irrelevant to compare because it is so much
50 greater for other cattle apart from cows), then one steer
51 or one -----
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not going to speculate.
54
55 MR. MORRIS: No. But it is obvious that it can have a greater
56 effect. In fact, it might be, in the end, that ten times
57 as much soya gets eaten by the two percent of steers or
58 bulls that are used or that end up there for McDonald's
59 use; and, certainly, other countries, where they may be
60 50 percent of the stock used, of the raw material. We can
