Day 094 - 01 Mar 95 - Page 65


     
     1        A.  Sorry?
     2
     3   Q.   Would that be thrown away after their tests?
     4        A.  The meat?
     5
     6   Q.   Yes.
     7        A.  That has been tested.
     8
     9   Q.   Yes.
    10        A.  Yes.
    11
    12   Q.   It must be carcasses then?
    13        A.  No.
    14
    15   Q.   Or samples?
    16        A.  No.  It is a combination.  The test, some of the tests
    17        when you look for pesticides or herbicides are done on
    18        organ meats, could be liver, pancreas.  There are some
    19        other tests that are being conducted on the meat itself, so
    20        it will change.
    21
    22   Q.   So they take samples from 3 per cent of the meat?
    23        A.  That is correct.
    24
    25   Q.   When you were giving evidence in-chief you said that you
    26        had worked with the USDA resulting in changes for
    27        regulations for cooking temperature of beef.
    28        A.  That is correct.
    29
    30   Q.   When was that?
    31        A.  About a year and a half to two years ago.
    32
    33   Q.   Why were you working on those regulations?
    34        A.  Because when it comes to -- let me start again.  We are
    35        the most recognised restaurant in the world.  We are
    36        constantly, we have people constantly trying to duplicate
    37        what we do, spying on us, trying to find out what we do.
    38        We are very reluctant to share our technology when it comes
    39        to productive and efficiency of management of operations.
    40        We are very open when it comes to food safety.  When it
    41        comes to food safety we share every single piece of
    42        information we have.  When the jack-in-the-box incident
    43        happened it not only affected their business, it affected
    44        our businesses. When people start dying from eating
    45        hamburgers we have a concern.  When we know that the
    46        regulations at those times were to cook the hamburgers to a
    47        level in which we knew through our research it would not
    48        kill the bacteria, we felt a responsibility, more
    49        responsibility to share that information and push the USDA
    50        to increase the regulation to increasing cooking 
    51        temperature.  We did that. 
    52 
    53   Q.   What was the level previously then?
    54        A.  It was 145 degrees F.
    55
    56   Q.   For how long?
    57        A.  It does not specify a time at that time.
    58
    59   Q.   What is the regulation now then?
    60        A.  It is 155 degrees for 15 seconds.

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