Day 077 - 25 Jan 95 - Page 39


     
     1        away from the meat which is what we want.
     2
     3   Q.   Is it important that the intestines or the guts, or
     4        whatever you like to call them, are not split or damaged in
     5        the course of this operation?
     6        A.  Very important; if there is any E.colis where the
     7        E.coli infection might come from.
     8
     9   Q.   E.coli, I take it -- you did do a diploma or something in
    10        bacteriology for your fellowship, did you not, an exam?
    11        A.  Yes.
    12
    13   Q.   E.coli, I take it, is so-called because it lives in the
    14        colon; is that right?
    15        A.  That is right.  Everyone of us in this room has 184
    16        E.coli in our guts.
    17
    18   Q.   Minimum.
    19        A.  Minimum.
    20
    21   Q.   Looking at the plan, you see there are lots of places, or
    22        there seems to be quite a lot of places, called "sterile"
    23        or "hand wash"
    24        A.  Yes.
    25
    26   Q.   Or "apron wash".  Does that seem to you to be an adequate
    27        number for your purposes or not?
    28        A.  Yes.  I mean, it is not an adequate number for my
    29        purposes to have an EEC licence.  It is the EEC licensing
    30        Authority, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
    31        will stipulate where the knife sterilisers are, where the
    32        apron washes are.
    33
    34   Q.   Put it another way, I take it you are concerned not to
    35        poison the people that eat your food?
    36        A.  Well, I would hope so because we rely on repeat custom.
    37
    38   Q.   I can see that, Mr. Walker.  Is there any respect, do you
    39        think, in which the conditions imposed by the EC are not
    40        stringent enough to protect the customer and yourself
    41        ultimately against that risk?
    42        A.  No, there no circumstances.  There are enough
    43        committees in MAFF and in Brussels working constantly on
    44        setting the standards for these operations.  There are
    45        permanent committees sitting that are improving them all
    46        the time and coming up with new ideas.
    47
    48   Q.   Have you made yourself any input into learning in Europe
    49        about the meat quality control?
    50        A.  Yes. 
    51 
    52   Q.   What was that? 
    53        A.  1988 -- I do not think I have actually been officially
    54        retired yet -- I was made Chairman of McDonald's Quality
    55        Control Committee for Europe.  In conjunction with other
    56        members of that Committee, I went through every meat plant
    57        that McDonald's have got in Europe, from Turkey to
    58        Finland.  We also wrote a manual on the things we are
    59        discussing, basic standards, basic specifications, and we
    60        had it translated into four European languages.

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