Day 003 - 30 Jun 94 - Page 10
1
Q. Pass on down the column, please: "Out of 40 of the
2 world's poorest countries, 36 export food to the USA - the
wealthiest." I do not ask you about the USA. I do ask
3 you whether, so far as you are aware, any of the world's
poorest countries exports food to this country which is
4 used by McDonald's?
A. No.
5
Q. A suggestion has been made by the defendants in the course
6 of opening this case that McDonald's has used or, perhaps,
I know not, still uses beef which comes from rainforest
7 areas of Brazil. As far as you know, is that true or
false?
8 A. That is false.
9 Q. Where does McDonald's get its beef in this country?
A. Some 90 per cent comes from the UK itself. The
10 formula we follow is basically a fresh meat formula so it
has to. The balance by and large comes from the
11 Continent, European Community countries.
12 Q. Can you turn over the page, please? There is a lot more
material on that page which I need not trouble you with in
13 the light of those answers. Ignore the box, please.
Notice the heading "McDisease", "McDeadly" because I am
14 going to come back to that. Ignore the box in the left
hand column and then pass your eye down to the blob and
15 the large bold heading: "Why is it wrong for McDonald's
to destroy rainforests?" So far as you know, do
16 McDonald's destroy rainforests?
A. We do not.
17
Q. Pass on down, please, to the subheading: "Pet Food and
18 Litter. McDonald's and another company are two of the
many US corporations using lethal poisons to destroy vast
19 areas of Central American rainforest to create grazing
pastures for cattle to be sent back to the States as
20 burgers and pet food, and to provide fastfood packaging
materials".
21
I have two questions, Mr. Preston: The first is, as far
22 as you know, does McDonald's use lethal poisons to destroy
rainforests in Central America?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Does McDonald's import cattle from such areas to provide
burgers?
25 A. We do not.
26 Q. Does McDonald's use those trees to provide fastfood
packaging materials?
27 A. Again, no.
28 Q. Then we get this in parenthesis: "(Don't be fooled by
McDonald's saying they use recycled paper: only a tiny
29 per cent of it is" -- pausing there, has McDonald's tried
to fool people about the percentage of recycled paper that
30 they use?
A. We have not.
