Day 067 - 15 Dec 94 - Page 57
1 they are not currently exporting McDonald's products to our
2 McDonald's suppliers or restaurants. That applies to both
3 chicken and beef.
4
5 Q. So which countries have they exported to in the past?
6 A. For McDonald's?
7
8 Q. Yes.
9 A. None.
10
11 Q. Since when do you know that?
12 A. I know as far as I have been working with the company
13 which is three and a half years, I have never heard any
14 comments or discussions. I have heard that they have never
15 done that. I have asked the previous management and the
16 current management and nobody has ever said that we have
17 exported product for McDonald's. I have also asked our
18 people who are based in Florida who are responsible for
19 Latin America and who have been with the company for up to
20 20 years, and they have confirmed hat they have never in
21 any instance exported products from Costa Rica to
22 McDonald's to our suppliers, to McDonald's suppliers or to
23 McDonald's restaurants.
24
25 Q. You said they were keen now to do that?
26 A. Excuse me, I did not hear you?
27
28 Q. You said before they were keen to do it now?
29 A. They want to, of course.
30
31 Q. But what is the point of them being keen on it if you do
32 not accept it?
33 A. I did not say we do not accept it. I said we do not do
34 it. If we have enough evidence, which is the case right
35 now, that they are capable, that they do not bring product
36 from the rainforests which we do now, if we have evidence
37 that their product meets our specifications and standards
38 and procedures which they do now, that certainly qualifies
39 them to be something to be considered for export.
40 I consider them, we have referred to them as "export
41 capable". There are some issues that we have to take into
42 account before we make the final decision of whether or not
43 we should export product from one country to another. One
44 of them is obviously economics. If it does not make sense
45 economically we will not do it. We always look at
46 long-term implications. We always look at all of the
47 possible sources of supply.
48
49 Around Costa Rica we have a lot of countries and suppliers
50 that are capable of meeting the same qualifications. They
51 have a very strong competitor, that is the United States,
52 which the competition for them is a big disadvantage in two
53 ways: (1) because the volumes that we have in the United
54 States allow us to have a lower cost just because of
55 economies of scales, and the other advantage that we have
56 is that we have to add the cost of distribution of moving
57 the product around. The other part is regulations. In the
58 United States you can import product with very few
59 barriers. In Costa Rica you cannot import product from the
60 US. We take that into consideration when we go and talk to
