Day 247 - 10 May 96 - Page 56


     
     1        poultry, the pork facility.  I have been to slaughterhouses
     2        in the UK years ago but not recently.
     3
     4   Q.   Right.  When did you visit Sun Valley?
     5        A.  I have been there since they became a supplier on half
     6        a dozen occasions.
     7
     8   Q.   What aspects of the business did you see?
     9        A.  Well, the first, the very first, visit I did everything
    10        from the arrival of chickens to the completed Mcchicken
    11        sandwich or nugget, all points in between.  I also toured
    12        the work they do for other clients.
    13
    14   Q.   When was this visit?
    15        A.  I have made a couple of them.  The first one I made
    16        involved that.  That would have been -- we started nuggets
    17        in 1986 or so.
    18
    19   Q.   I think?
    20        A.  Around that time.
    21
    22   Q.   I think it was 1983 I have seen it written somewhere?
    23        A.  Shortly at or about the time we started chicken
    24        McNuggets and I have been back numerous times since.  They
    25        had just opened a new facility in Wolverhampton and I was
    26        just there.
    27
    28   Q.   "Numerous" is "half a dozen" you said previously?
    29        A.  Every couple of years I will go through.
    30
    31   Q.   Yes, but you have not been to the cattle slaughter plants,
    32        or the pig slaughtering?
    33        A.  I have not been to the pig facility at all.  I have
    34        been to cattle facilities but it has been many, many years.
    35
    36   Q.   How long ago was that?
    37        A.  15.
    38
    39   Q.   The Animal Welfare Policy is something that has only come
    40        in in the past couple of years, is it not?  Animal welfare
    41        is really only something that you have taken up in the past
    42        couple of years?
    43        A.  No, I would dispute that.
    44
    45   Q.   Why do you dispute it?
    46        A.  The McDonald's practices of working with their
    47        suppliers and the suppliers suppliers as it relates to
    48        animal husbandry, the conditions has been something we have
    49        concentrated on for many, many years, not me personally but
    50        the purchasing department and its quality assurance people 
    51        have long been involved in those conditions if for no other 
    52        reason than to guarantee the materials arriving at our back 
    53        door were as good as they could possibly be could.  They
    54        will not be if the animals are raised in sub standard or
    55        miserable conditions.
    56
    57   Q.   But basically these people that are going to make checks
    58        were actually making checks on the standard of the meat
    59        rather than on the welfare conditions?
    60        A.  I am sure they look at everything.

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