Day 106 - 23 Mar 95 - Page 44
1 meat stripping stage, then a logical and reasonable
2 deduction, I would suggest, is that it would be higher in
3 the actual McNuggets themselves.
4
5 Q. I remember we had the interlude, do you remember, when
6 I suggested that Mr. North came and sat behind you, and one
7 of you said that he had to leave in five minutes and we
8 thought we had got it all straightened out what the
9 understanding was. It may well be that that was in the
10 deboned meat that you were seeking to put there, but we,
11 essentially, left it until Mr. North gave his evidence. If
12 need be, we can look up the transcript of what happened
13 there. I think it was not either side of the mid-day
14 adjournment; it was either side of one of our five-minute
15 breaks that it happened.
16
17 MS. STEEL: I have the note I made when I asked Mr. North about
18 this. It just says: "25 per cent of the meat samples"
19 which could be either.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think I was thrown by the words "finished
22 processed meat". It may be other people ----
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: It may not at the end make a huge amount of
25 difference because the fact is that once the meat has been
26 deboned from a particular piece of chicken, it is chucked
27 with a whole lot of other bits of chicken from different
28 birds into a bin and sent to France for making into
29 McNuggets.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I appreciate that. It seems to be
32 common ground, in any event, which may be the most
33 important matter, that you must work on the basis that any
34 chicken food in whatever form may well have salmonella
35 organisms in it.
36
37 THE WITNESS: I think, my Lord, that is -----
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: So on that basis there is not testing for it
40 at the end of the day because everyone thinks that is the
41 only safe assumption to work upon.
42
43 MS. STEEL (To the witness): This part of a salmonella reduction
44 programme, did you ask about the figures for 1989 or 1990
45 or previous years?
46 A. As I understand Pattison, he was talking in terms of
47 previous flock rates being in the order of 4 per cent
48 around that time. He was quite proud of having achieved
49 that reduction. He attributed it, in part, to the new
50 reception facility for the live birds, and the role of
51 distribution of infection through the crates was discussed
52 at some length. They had certainly felt -- this would
53 actually be obvious -- that if the crates had not been
54 washed -- the crates, you see, come in with the live birds,
55 they are then returned, but not necessarily to the same
56 farms, so if you are taking crates, soiled crates, from one
57 farm and then distributing them back to another farm
58 without them being thoroughly cleaned, there is a
59 possibility of transfer of infection.
60
