Day 093 - 28 Feb 95 - Page 42
1 on your target and ask about that, I cannot say what the
2 answer will be, but at least there will be an answer.
3
4 MS. STEEL: I have just realised I missed something out.
5 (To the witness): How many birds are in each current bath
6 for stunning at a time?
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We are still in the US, are we?
9
10 MS. STEEL: In America, yes.
11 A. I have not counted them. It is a moving chain so I do
12 not know.
13
14 Q. You do not know?
15 A. No.
16
17 Q. Are there any countries where McDonald's suppliers do not
18 use electrical stunning of chickens?
19 A. I do not know.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We are on broilers now.
22 A. On broilers, yes. I do not know. You have to
23 understand that not all of our suppliers are just like the
24 Sun Valley or the Tysons where they are dedicated to us.
25 It is very difficult for me, for instance, just to make an
26 analogy, buy a shirt and go back and tell: "Was that
27 cotton produced with pesticides or not pesticides?" I have
28 no control over that. In many countries we have no control
29 over our suppliers in terms of what we buy or where the
30 meat is coming from. We buy from, just like everybody else
31 normally buys. I have not seen, nobody has seen all of the
32 suppliers that supply products to us. That is beyond our
33 human capability for us, for any business.
34
35 MS. STEEL: So the suppliers in other countries are not
36 required to comply to any policy then?
37 A. How can they be required when you do not have control?
38 We do not own the suppliers all over the world.
39
40 Q. Is there a welfare policy?
41 A. Where?
42
43 Q. At McDonald's?
44 A. We went through this quite extensively in the past. Do
45 you have any specific question?
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We did go through it quite a lot. What
48 I suggest is if you put: "Is there any kind of
49 specification or code which McDonald's provides for methods
50 of slaughter of broilers?" because that is what you are
51 aiming at at the moment. You might well find that the
52 answer to that is "no", do you see? (To the witness): Let
53 me ask you: Do you have any kind of code or similar
54 document or provision for the methods of slaughter of
55 broilers anywhere in the world that you know of?
56 A. Not through McDonald's, we do not. No, we rely our
57 suppliers to.
58
59 Q. You leave them to set their own standards?
60 A. Yes, we do.
