Day 111 - 30 Mar 95 - Page 36
1 with high pressure water.
2
3 Q. Was there any other concern about chillers?
4 A. Well, my concern definitely was the fact that the
5 carcasses were not allowed to be chilled properly.
6
7 Q. How many days did they spend in the chillers?
8 A. Well, normally carcasses would have to spend two days,
9 48 hours, in the chillers, to be chilled to a level where
10 the temperatures reach 7. It would be very poor practice
11 by an abattoir to chill the carcasses faster. It is, of
12 course, possible. It would be very poor practice to try
13 and chill the carcasses faster because you are then faced
14 with a phenomenon called "cold shortening".
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Called what?
17 A. Of the beef.
18
19 Q. Called?
20 A. Cold shortening, and this leads to very tough meat, and
21 I do not think that any customers would remain very long
22 with an abattoir operator who chilled their beef very
23 rapidly.
24
25 Q. So that did not happen at Jarretts?
26 A. No, it did not happen. How they tried to fasten the
27 operations or increase their throughput was to take the
28 carcasses out after 24 hours in the chillers and load
29 them. Here we are concerned with the carcass meat that
30 went out as carcasses from the plant. That is why the
31 temperatures for the carcass meat often were as high as
32 they were because they were taken out of chillers after 24
33 hours of chilling.
34
35 We tried to solve this problem. The management was quite
36 aware of the problem and they admitted that the carcass
37 temperatures were too high and they understood my
38 predicament. It was very difficult for me to allow them to
39 load carcasses at these temperatures when the statutory
40 temperature is 7. I would be responsible for the inspecting
41 veterinary officer at the other end opening a lorry load of
42 carcasses at 10, 15 degrees of Centigrade.
43
44 They were fairly co-operative when I said: "This situation
45 cannot carry on", but they felt that their abattoir would
46 not be profitable unless they could keep up with the
47 throughput they had. Basically, there was a shortage of
48 chiller space for carcasses.
49
50 Q. Before we go any further, those carcasses, whole carcasses
51 that were leaving the plant, they were not destined for
52 McKey's?
53 A. No.
54
55 Q. That is for export?
56 A. Yes.
57
58 Q. But the fundamental problem was they were moving?
59 A. Well, they had ----.
60
