Day 032 - 06 Oct 94 - Page 51
1 misleading.
2
3 Q. As a food policy specialist, are you concerned with the
4 kind of images which are being put over to describe
5 manufacturers to describe their own food and products.
6 A. Oh, yes, indeed. Indeed, the issue of misleading
7 labelling in this country has occupied a lot of our time
8 at the Food Commission recently. There have been moves in
9 America just culminating in this year the implementation
10 of a food and drug administration act restricting
11 misleading claims on labels to do with high fat, low fat,
12 and what those definitions should mean. We have no such
13 restrictions over here.
14
15 Q. Is that a development you would like to see more -----
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is it not covered by the normal Trade
18 Description Act provisions?
19 A. Unfortunately not. The definition of light and low
20 and reduced, and so on, are open to interpretation and
21 have not been sufficiently defined by challenge. So,
22 unlike in America, we have no such strict definitions. It
23 is something I would like to see introduced over here, to
24 answer your question.
25
26 Q. We will just go on to the ingredients labelling.
27
28 MS. STEEL: In this case we have seen some of the literature
29 produced by McDonald's which now includes ingredient
30 information, but has that always been the case?
31 A. No, it has not. I have been very pleased to see that
32 not only McDonald's but several other fast food companies
33 have started to produce such information, but at the time
34 of writing the book I wrote in 1986/87, no such
35 information was available in this country. It had,
36 however, started to come out in the United States. In fact
37 one of the motivations for writing the book over here was
38 to be able to reproduce such information in an accessible
39 form and, perhaps, prompt the main fast food companies
40 into revealing the information over here.
41
42 Q. In your book, which if anybody wants to know is document
43 No. 54 in the Defendants' documents, on page 125 you say
44 that McDonald's can supply their nutritional tables to
45 people who ask, but will not release their ingredients
46 lists.
47 A. That was the case at the time.
48
49 Q. "They were prepared to give the London Food Commission
50 details of some additives to be found in some of their
51 products, but to our independent consumers they wrote
52 saying they would investigate their queries. At the time
53 of going to press, over ten months later, nothing further
54 had been heard." In the bundle of documents that have
55 been served with your statement, the references, sorry, at
56 No. 6 there should be a letter. Have you got a copy of
57 that letter?
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I read it overnight. It is from the woman
60 in the North East of England or to a woman in the North
