Day 099 - 08 Mar 95 - Page 78
1 Q. So you are prepared to sell chicken with a salmonella count
2 rather than not sell it at all, in effect?
3 A. We would not sell it with a salmonella count. We would
4 kill the salmonella before we ever sold it.
5
6 Q. I see that.
7 A. It would be more unusual to find salmonella in beef
8 than it would in chicken.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Thank you.
11
12 MR. MORRIS: I could quote to you from Mr. Walker's evidence.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do not quote put. The substance of what you
15 want to quote.
16
17 MR. MORRIS: It can be checked. Pages 38 and 39 of Day 79, for
18 example, one of the many quotes, Mr. Walker basically said
19 that meat over the 10 million level containing more than 10
20 million bacteria is processed, goes into patties, and by
21 the time they get the results the refrigerated lorry has
22 gone away?
23 A. I think I can see where the confusion is coming in
24 actually.
25
26 Q. "And it goes through to the stores?" "Yes". Then he says
27 what about cooking is the defence against bacterial
28 infection anyway.
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What do you want to say about that?
31 A. I think the two areas that are being confused are the
32 microbiological counts on the raw material, the meat as it
33 comes into McKey's plant, and the microbiological
34 specification on the finished frozen hamburgers. The
35 McKey's spec. which is for the raw materials is on page 16
36 in the yellow file. Mr. Walker would have said that even
37 if it their unsatisfactory count is exceeded, they would
38 still go on and process that meat into the finished
39 product, for two reasons: One because that specification is
40 tighter than the McDonald's finished product specification,
41 and also the fact that if it was more than likely only a
42 small part of a finished batch, that concentration of
43 bacteria, if you like, would be diluted, in effect, by the
44 other parts of the batch, the meat with lower counts, and
45 so the end product would still come out below the
46 McDonald's guidelines.
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am afraid to say I think there is a
49 double confusion. It is not only that one must not confuse
50 raw meat with finished product; it is that one must not
51 confuse McDonald's specification with McKey's own
52 guidelines which are 5,000,000, not 10, and that is in
53 effect what Mr. Walker was talking about at this stage in
54 his evidence.
55
56 MR. MORRIS: Well, I remember at least ----
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause for a moment.
59
60 MR. RAMPTON: In that passage he is using the word
