Day 179 - 30 Oct 95 - Page 10
1 say about any concerns you might have had, or that you had?
2 A. It was a concern that, to save money, drink syrups
3 would be watered down; sometimes out-of-date onions would
4 be used; milkshake mix would be watered down.
5
6 Q. Apart from the ones you have put in your statement, were
7 there any hygiene concerns in terms of food storage or
8 anything else?
9 A. The buns had a very complicated dating system to go out
10 of date and, quite often, buns would be used out of date
11 or, if they were over-ordered, frozen and then defrosted
12 and used some time later.
13
14 Q. Did the Company have set times for how long food could be
15 kept in the production bin?
16 A. Yes, it did. There was a holding time of 10 minutes
17 once the product reached the production bin, and these were
18 hardly ever respected. Sometimes food would be in there
19 for 20/30 minutes before it was sold.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause. Yes?
22
23 MR. MORRIS: You said it was hardly ever adhered to. Why was
24 that?
25 A. Because if the waste was at an unacceptable level, then
26 the Area Supervisor and people above him would basically
27 tell the Manager: "Lower the waste; you cannot run up this
28 waste level."
29
30 Q. They would have had to have been thrown away, otherwise?
31 A. Yes, they would be thrown away.
32
33 Q. You mentioned about the watering down of food items. We
34 will come to that a bit later when we go back to your
35 original statement. But what did customers think about the
36 quality of food sold at McDonald's?
37 A. Sometimes, or quite often, you would have complaints,
38 people saying their burger was cold or sometimes raw meat;
39 people would come back with especially quarter pounders,
40 because for quarter pounders to sear you needed a lot of
41 brute force to physically press the burger down on the
42 grill plate to make it cook through before you turned it,
43 and, if you did not have the strength, then the meat would
44 not be properly cooked. When this happened, the customer
45 would bring one back; a replacement would be given to them
46 immediately.
47
48 Q. So what was the procedure to deal with that complaint?
49 A. Give a replacement.
50
51 Q. Right. Did you ever fill in any forms?
52 A. No, no. I was not aware of any form there was to be
53 filled in for that kind of thing.
54
55 Q. You mentioned complaints, as an example, of undercooked
56 burgers. Were there any other complaints about food?
57 A. Sometimes someone would say the Cola tasted funny, this
58 kind of thing, or sometimes the milkshakes were either very
59 thin or very thick or icy. These complaints were
60 occasional, but they were there.
