Day 067 - 15 Dec 94 - Page 20
1 resources for the people and economic resources to find the
2 best practices simply because we care and that is the right
3 thing to do.
4
5 Q. Something that might come under "better practices" might
6 include the development of, say, Mr. McDonald, the chicken
7 that improved the efficiency of nugget making processes?
8 A. That could include that, yes.
9
10 Q. Did McDonald's have an input into that?
11 A. Did McDonald's, in what sense?
12
13 Q. Funding or anything like that, any involvement?
14 A. Well, Tyson by itself developed the breed to fill our
15 needs. That is why that breed was developed.
16
17 Q. So that was something you asked them to do; that was
18 something McDonald's asked them to do?
19 A. No, they came to us and said: "We have been working
20 for many years", and they are not the only ones. There has
21 been throughout the world -- in, obviously, the US there
22 has been a constant effort to improve chickens.
23
24 Q. Improve the efficiency of your operation?
25 A. To improve everything from the composition of the bird,
26 the health of the bird, their resistance to diseases and,
27 obviously, their ability to grow faster and improve their
28 efficiencies, that is correct.
29
30 Q. Does it actually have any benefit for the chicken to grow
31 to twice the size or almost twice the size it would
32 normally be?
33 A. I do not know where you are getting your figures, but
34 "twice their size" would not be an accurate statement.
35
36 Q. Almost twice the weight?
37 A. Compared to what?
38
39 Q. To a normal broiler?
40 A. What is a normal broiler?
41
42 Q. If you want to know, the figures are from John Love's book
43 "Behind the Arches" which, as I understand it, is approved
44 by McDonald's.
45 A. There has been -----
46
47 Q. The phrase in the book -- if anyone wants to check, it is
48 page 344 -- says: "Tyson developed an entirely new breed
49 of chicken it called Mr. McDonald".
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, I am sorry, when you go underground we
52 cannot hear at all.
53
54 MS. STEEL: "Tyson developed an entirely knew breed of chicken
55 it called Mr. McDonald which was specifically designed to
56 increase the efficiency of the nugget making process.
57 Nearly twice as large as the standard supermarket broiler,
58 Tyson's new chicken further reduced the deboning problem by
59 increasing the meat yield from each cut". Do you agree
60 with that?
