Day 001 - 28 Jun 94 - Page 50


     
     1        extent, in other EC countries.  In Costa Rica the beef is
              Costa Rican.  In Guatemala it is Guatemalan.  In Australia
     2        it is Australian, and so on.  There are some few
              exceptions, they are these.  In Japan, Hong Kong,
     3        Singapore and Malaysia which have insufficient cattle of
              their own, the beef is imported from Australia.
     4
              Even in those parts of the world which do have
     5        rainforests, such as Costa Rica and Guatemala, which are
              the two countries to which the defendants make reference
     6        in their defence, the beef used in the plaintiffs'
              restaurants comes from land which, if it ever was
     7        rainforest, and that assumption should not be made, was
              cleared of its trees many years ago.  Thus, in Costa Rica
     8        where the first McDonald's restaurant was opened in 1970,
              some of the land on which the beef was raised had been
     9        rainforest up to the 1960s, whilst other cattle-growing
              areas in that country from which the beef came had not
    10        been rainforest since the 1900s.  The position has not
              changed since then.
    11
              The nine McDonald's restaurants which Costa Rica now has,
    12        still take no beef from any area of the country deforested
              more recently than the mid-1960s.  One asks the question,
    13        if that is so and the land was what it was by the time
              McDonald's got to Costa Rica and has remained the same
    14        land since then, that is to say, grazing land for cattle,
              what conceivable responsibility could be thought that
    15        McDonald's had or has for what happened to the trees
              before McDonald's got there?
    16
              My Lord, in Guatemala the position is even more striking.
    17        The first McDonald's restaurant in Guatemala was opened in
              1974.  The land from which that restaurant took its beef
    18        and from which the eight restaurants which now exist in
              Guatemala still take their beef, had not been rainforest
    19        land since the end of the last century.
 
    20        My Lord, McDonald's lack of involvement in or
              responsibility for the destruction of any rainforest trees
    21        anywhere in the world is not accidental.  There are two
              reasons why it is not an accident.  The first is this.
    22        McDonald's in the United States does not use (and has
              never used) any imported beef.  This rule is actually
    23        written into the first plaintiffs' specifications to their
              suppliers and has been in place for as long as anyone can
    24        recall.  In turn, McDonald's suppliers must obtain similar
              guarantees from their suppliers.
    25
              If that needs explanation, it is this, that more often 
    26        than not McDonald's obtains its products from people like 
              McKey Foods who process beef which the processor in turn 
    27        has obtained from a primary source, such as a slaughter
              house.
    28
              So, the rule is, if the supplier is not the slaughterer,
    29        he must obtain a certification from his supplier who does
              slaughter the meat, that it is 100 per cent US beef, which
    30        means not simply that it is marked "US beef", but that it
              is guaranteed slaughtered within the continental

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