Day 059 - 01 Dec 94 - Page 34
1 polystyrene foam?
2 A. Not directly. If I might comment on the Asia Pacific
3 situation, all of those countries are supplied by a Pacific
4 (indistinguishable) in Hong Kong. The equipment that they
5 installed into a new factory gave them the capability to
6 use C02 as a blowing agent. If we were to put the same
7 equipment into, say, Lin Pac, the supplier here in the UK,
8 it would cost in the region of £320,000 to install and the
9 yield from the polystyrene foam would be 15 per cent worse
10 than it is currently today.
11
12 That answers, on the one side, the Asia Pacific part of the
13 question. On the other side, am I aware of any new
14 developments, yes, I am. There are two new developments
15 currently taking place, one here with Lin Pac in the UK,
16 and another one with a new supplier in the USA.
17
18 Q. Is that information commercially sensitive?
19 A. It is -- very.
20
21 Q. Yes, I can understand that. So, unless his Lordship
22 requires it, I will not ask you any more about it save
23 this: Do those two new ideas, if I may call them that,
24 involve the use of carbon dioxide or not?
25 A. No.
26
27 Q. Again I apologise for this, can you put that one away,
28 please, and extract (which you will need in a minute) the
29 next one on which is Volume V again with the same heading?
30 A. OK.
31
32 Q. Leave it there for the moment while I ask you, if I may,
33 some introductory questions. You have been at McDonald's
34 since 1978. During that time or from that time, I should
35 say, what was the packaging used for the sandwiches from
36 1978?
37 A. The large sandwiches?
38
39 Q. Yes.
40 A. It was foam packaging.
41
42 Q. So, for the large sandwiches in this country, so far as you
43 have experienced McDonald's, it has always been foam, has
44 it?
45 A. Yes, except for the one very brief period where we did
46 test cardboard packaging and we did test wraps, but purely
47 in a number of stores to gauge customer reaction which was
48 very poor.
49
50 Q. What I want to trace with you, if I may, Mr. Oakley, is not
51 the history of the wrapping but the history of the blowing
52 agent used to produce the foam?
53 A. Yes.
54
55 Q. When you first joined the company in 1978, what was the
56 blowing agent which was used in those days?
57 A. It was hydrocarbon Isopentane.
58
59 Q. How long did McDonald's suppliers who are called Lin Pac,
60 I think ---
