Day 069 - 19 Dec 94 - Page 67
1 do that 40 years ago when we were not, maybe 30 years ago,
2 20 years ago, if you will, when we were not big enough.
3 Nowadays we are big enough so that the suppliers will come
4 to us from all over the world with our need to fund
5 research. If we do feel that there is some research that
6 we feel would be of interest of us, and we do feel that
7 there is a need to finance the research, we will do that
8 and we have done that in some areas of the world.
9
10 Q. But if people do not come up to your standards or have done
11 in the past, you said something like you will be prepared
12 to work with them, even supply equipment or put up money to
13 help them get better equipment, is that fair comment?
14 A. We have done a lot of things. We have asked suppliers
15 to say -- we have told them, for instance, that this is a
16 supplier -----
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you just pause there? That was in
19 relation to processing.
20
21 MR. MORRIS: Right.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Or I thought it was. It was very largely, so
24 are we still on an animal welfare, raising and slaughter
25 now, Mr. Morris, you are asking about?
26
27 MR. MORRIS: Yes. I was just trying to see -- you see, if
28 McDonald's invests a lot of energy, even funds and time
29 with suppliers, and then at the end of the day they say,
30 "We do not want to supply you any more; we will just go and
31 find somebody else", that is time wasted, is it not?
32 A. My point of view is subject to pure speculation, I have
33 not seen any supplier that come to us and say: "I do not
34 want to supply to you" when they are currently supplying,
35 so that would be pure on speculation. We do not consider a
36 waste if you have done everything on our part and our
37 supplier comes and tells us, "I do not want to supply to
38 you", that is fine. We have done our best. We feel
39 comfortable with them.
40
41 Q. So the animals that are being produced to you, although you
42 do not own, do you see, them in some way as an investment?
43 A. As an investment in what sense? They do not belong to
44 us, so it is not an investment.
45
46 Q. When you speak about them in some personal way sometimes,
47 you say "our animals" or "our birds", Mr. McDonald?
48 A. These are not our birds, we are well aware of, even
49 with Tyson or a bigger supplier in the US, OSI, Keystone.
50 We do not have a legal bond with them in this country, so
51 we cannot say those are our birds.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What are you batting for at the moment?
54
55 MR. MORRIS: When you describe them, you say "our birds", and
56 I understand you do not own them.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I took that simply to mean birds which will
59 eventually end up as Chicken McNuggets or cattle which will
60 eventually end up as beef patties for McDonald's.
