Day 105 - 16 Mar 95 - Page 49
1 A. Well, in the case of cutting up a carcass, when it is
2 necessary to trace it back as well as maybe possible you
3 need to identify which has gone into the boning room
4 because then it becomes much more difficult. It is very
5 easy to trace a carcass which is not cut up because all
6 this information is transferred to a label which goes on to
7 the carcass.
8
9 Q. So who fills in this form and when?
10 A. There is a person stood at the scale in the
11 slaughterhouse, next to the scale, and stood at a desk, and
12 he is authorised by the Meat and Livestock Commission to
13 certify that the animals are of a certain grade and certain
14 weight. Until three, perhaps four, years ago this was
15 always done by MLC officials, but now it is possible for a
16 company to certify weights and grades with their own staff
17 so long as they are approved by the Meat and Livestock
18 Commission.
19
20 Q. When is it done in the process?
21 A. It is done when the two sides of the animal immediately
22 after slaughter have been weighed. That is when the
23 information is transferred to a ticket of edible collagen,
24 and that is stuck on the carcass which identifies that
25 carcass and presents the information thereon during the
26 process.
27
28 Q. So who has filled in the Xs because it will not be the same
29 person, will it?
30 A. If he is instructed to select certain carcasses for
31 going to the boning room, he will put that X on it. He
32 will put an X on the label as well and that will go into
33 the chillers and subsequently into the boning room
34 prechiller, the chiller which is used to hold boning room
35 meat. It is purely an information system within the
36 company.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What point are you getting at on this
39 document? It is fair enough to ask what the document was
40 and you have had your answers about that, but where does it
41 take us on food poisoning or animal welfare now you have
42 had the explanation, for better or worse?
43
44 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, if one wants to spend a lot of time in
45 one's spare time, perhaps over the weekend, attempting a
46 reconciliation, one needs to look at page 66 (which is a
47 different document) to the boning room.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do not let us get involved in it now.
50
51 MR. RAMPTON: I have done it. It is highly laborious and wholly
52 uninformative.
53
54 MR. MORRIS: The packed temperatures, these are temperature at
55 the time of loading, are they not?
56 A. Could I have the number, please, the document
57 reference?
58
59 Q. Look at, say, 88.
60 A. Yes, I have that.
