Day 294 - 05 Nov 96 - Page 21
1 need for cheap products. And the point I am making is I do
2 not think they deliberately want to have unhealthy food or
3 even that, you know, if it happens they think it is a good
4 thing. Obviously, they think it is a bad thing when it
5 happens.
6
7 But the point is, because of their deliberate policy in
8 having food of these ingredients at this speed in this high
9 pressured environment in their stores, they must know that
10 the food safety issues are going to be magnified rather
11 than reduced. So I don't think they consciously want to
12 magnify the food safety problems, but I do think that in
13 order to maintain their profits they have to cut corners
14 and have systems that are fragile and flawed.
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
17
18 MS. STEEL: Can I just say something on this, which is they
19 want the production system to be very fast so that they can
20 have rapid turnover and thereby make more profits. They do
21 not want customers kept waiting, I think it is longer than
22 a minute or two minutes, for their food because otherwise
23 they know that they will turn away and might go somewhere
24 else. And the reality is the majority of people, if they
25 got food poisoning, would not know the source of the food
26 poisoning. Most cases of food poisoning would be mild and
27 people might not even bother going to their doctors, and it
28 is only when they go to their doctors and it is serious
29 that there is any kind of investigation into the source of
30 it.
31
32 And in terms of if people think they have got the food
33 poisoning from McDonald's, we have heard that, you know,
34 they take their burger back or whatever and complain or
35 they make a complaint and basically they get offered a
36 replacement. And that is going to work out a lot cheaper
37 for McDonald's than slowing down the production system to
38 ensure that all the products are thoroughly cooked.
39
40 Then obviously, in cases where there is a serious outbreak
41 of food poisoning, despite all the evidence pointing
42 totally in their direction, being completely overwhelming,
43 McDonald's deny it, deny all responsibility for it. So
44 I think the point is that obviously they do not want people
45 to get food poisoning, but if -- well, it is where they are
46 choosing to draw the line.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think the point which will be put against
49 you is that not only do they not want people to get food
50 poisoning, they would not want there to be any risk which
51 they could avoid.
52
53 MS. STEEL: Well, they know there is a risk. If they were
54 serious about the risk, then the lessons which should have
55 been learned in the USA after the E.Coli food poisoning
56 outbreak over there would have been sent all around the
57 world to all the branches to get them to enforce it over
58 here as well.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: These are points of detailed argument and I
