Day 296 - 07 Nov 96 - Page 23


     
     1        additional concern that a company which purports to be
     2        trying to encourage people to adopt a balanced diet is in
     3        fact targeting -- you know, a balanced and healthy diet --
     4        is in fact targeting people who are already at risk to
     5        encourage them to eat even more of the same type of food
     6        that is high in fat and so on.
     7
     8        In relation to the UK, we heard from Mr. Fairgrieve,
     9        McDonald's UK marketing services manager, who stated that
    10        the company now had 650 million customer visits per year,
    11        and who said that the entire eating-out market is an
    12        expansion, which effectively means that more and more
    13        people are eating less meals at home and becoming more
    14        reliant on the type of food sold by companies such as
    15        McDonald's, with all the implications that that has on
    16        their diet as a whole.
    17
    18        There were figures which showed - produced by
    19        Mr. Fairgrieve - that only 38 percent of the population
    20        actually visited a McDonald's store in any year, which
    21        creates a rather different impression to the position about
    22        650 million customer visits, or to the impression I think
    23        given by somebody else during the course of the trial -
    24        I think it might be Paul Preston - that they considered
    25        about 98 percent of the population as their customers.
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   What was the figure you said Mr. Fairgrieve
    28        gave for customer visits a year?
    29
    30   MS. STEEL:   650 million.  That was the second time he came
    31        back.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    34
    35   MS. STEEL:   The same research, or it might have actually been a
    36        different survey, but produced by Mr. Fairgrieve as well,
    37        in fact it was the two surveys, indicated that between 2
    38        and 4 percent of McDonald's total UK customer base, i.e.
    39        between half and -- well, between 2 and 4 percent of their
    40        total UK customer base ate at McDonald's several times a
    41        week, and 2 to 4 percent of their total UK customer base in
    42        any one day would be between half and one million people,
    43        so obviously that is a substantial proportion of their
    44        visitors.
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Do you mean their customer base in any one
    47        day would be -----
    48
    49   MS. STEEL:   Yes, because I think we heard there was something
    50        like one and a half million or something, I do not know.
    51
    52   MR. MORRIS:   It compares with the US figures of three-quarters
    53        of their visits being from heavy users.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Well ----
    56
    57   MR. MORRIS:   It is not quite as high in the UK.
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   If the 38 percent figure was right, in very
    60        general terms that is about 20 million people in this

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