Day 123 - 09 May 95 - Page 40
1 that you have on the diet in that country, if it is a
2 country that is not used to hamburgers?
3 A. That is part of the parcel. That goes along with the
4 basic tenets I outlined before. That goes along with being
5 a good corporate neighbour and giving back to the community
6 in which you serve. I think the operating standards that
7 we employ in the way we run our restaurants, the standards
8 in which our suppliers and purveyors operate their
9 businesses, also have a major influence on the community in
10 which they serve. In many countries where we operate, as
11 when McDonald's is introduced, we set a new standard of
12 supply, a new standard of delivery in many of those
13 countries.
14
15 Q. But you are in many countries providing new products which
16 have not been seen in this country, for example,
17 hamburgers?
18 A. Yes, in a number of those countries we may be providing
19 new products. I would generally say that hamburgers are
20 not completely new. The manner of production might be a
21 little different. The manner of delivery might be
22 different than what the populous are accustomed to, but
23 I would not say that it is completely, you know, "new" to
24 those countries there. I am sure there have been cases
25 where some of the products that we serve might be
26 completely foreign or new to those countries. But, by and
27 large, I think that for the general populous with french
28 fries and hamburgers and milk shakes, it is just the manner
29 in which we deliver those products -- when you look at the
30 entire chain from customer to the back door of our
31 supplier -- the procedures, policies, method of control,
32 levels of quality, generally tend to be much higher than is
33 generally the case in many of those countries.
34
35 Q. That, in your opinion, is part of the explanation why you
36 are having such an influence?
37 A. Oh, without question. We invite, you know, where we
38 can, we invite the public to visit our restaurants. It is
39 not unusual for classes of kids to tour a restaurants, or
40 will have different organisations tour McDonald's, tour
41 some of our suppliers to look at their control procedures,
42 their quality assurance practices. We think an informed
43 public is good for our business. The more they know about
44 us, the way we operate, what our standards are, what our
45 operating philosophy is all about, the better chance we
46 have of having them as consumers.
47
48 Q. It has been said by one of your witnesses, Mr. Hawkes, the
49 McDonald's UK chief marketing officer, said that when you
50 open in a country the general practice is to advertise to
51 the children initially; that is the first step.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Hawkes said that in some new countries,
54 or indeed new areas of countries you were already in, it
55 had sometimes happened that McDonald's advertising had been
56 directed at children alone to start with. Yes.
57
58 MR. MORRIS: In countries where there is no hamburger tradition,
59 or not much of one, would that particularly apply, that
60 children need to be introduced to what it is all about?
