Day 247 - 10 May 96 - Page 56
1 poultry, the pork facility. I have been to slaughterhouses
2 in the UK years ago but not recently.
3
4 Q. Right. When did you visit Sun Valley?
5 A. I have been there since they became a supplier on half
6 a dozen occasions.
7
8 Q. What aspects of the business did you see?
9 A. Well, the first, the very first, visit I did everything
10 from the arrival of chickens to the completed Mcchicken
11 sandwich or nugget, all points in between. I also toured
12 the work they do for other clients.
13
14 Q. When was this visit?
15 A. I have made a couple of them. The first one I made
16 involved that. That would have been -- we started nuggets
17 in 1986 or so.
18
19 Q. I think?
20 A. Around that time.
21
22 Q. I think it was 1983 I have seen it written somewhere?
23 A. Shortly at or about the time we started chicken
24 McNuggets and I have been back numerous times since. They
25 had just opened a new facility in Wolverhampton and I was
26 just there.
27
28 Q. "Numerous" is "half a dozen" you said previously?
29 A. Every couple of years I will go through.
30
31 Q. Yes, but you have not been to the cattle slaughter plants,
32 or the pig slaughtering?
33 A. I have not been to the pig facility at all. I have
34 been to cattle facilities but it has been many, many years.
35
36 Q. How long ago was that?
37 A. 15.
38
39 Q. The Animal Welfare Policy is something that has only come
40 in in the past couple of years, is it not? Animal welfare
41 is really only something that you have taken up in the past
42 couple of years?
43 A. No, I would dispute that.
44
45 Q. Why do you dispute it?
46 A. The McDonald's practices of working with their
47 suppliers and the suppliers suppliers as it relates to
48 animal husbandry, the conditions has been something we have
49 concentrated on for many, many years, not me personally but
50 the purchasing department and its quality assurance people
51 have long been involved in those conditions if for no other
52 reason than to guarantee the materials arriving at our back
53 door were as good as they could possibly be could. They
54 will not be if the animals are raised in sub standard or
55 miserable conditions.
56
57 Q. But basically these people that are going to make checks
58 were actually making checks on the standard of the meat
59 rather than on the welfare conditions?
60 A. I am sure they look at everything.
