Day 247 - 10 May 96 - Page 12


     
     1
     2   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I do wonder how Mr. Preston can answer
     3        these questions.  Mr. Fairgrieve is coming back.  He is the
     4        research expert.
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Do you think you can add to the research
     7        which has been done on this topic from your own personal
     8        experience?
     9        A.  Four to five times a week is very heavy user.
    10
    11   Q.   The other thing I wanted to ask is:  This correspondence
    12        uses the Drive-thru five nights a week.  Can you just buy a
    13        coffee in the Drive-thru if you want?
    14        A.  Sure.  Anything in the menu, your Lordship, is
    15        available.  A person might come in for a coffee, might come
    16        in for a soft drink, might come in for an entire meal.  I
    17        have no way of knowing from that how they use it, but
    18        anything is available through that facility, yes.
    19
    20   Q.   That leads me to another question:  When you talked about
    21        serving a million and a half people a day, could some of
    22        that million and a half just be coffees or were you
    23        thinking of a million and a half meals a day?
    24        A.  I am speaking individuals, just people.
    25
    26   Q.   Or a milkshake?
    27        A.  Or a milkshake, or a French fry, or a meal, or, if
    28        I was in the office today, I would probably have a drink, a
    29        sandwich and a fry.
    30
    31   Q.   So, in your million and a half, you include the youngster
    32        -- may not be a youngster -- who spends the change in their
    33        pockets on a milkshake which they carry off down the High
    34        Street?
    35        A.  That is one person.
    36
    37   Q.   That counts as one of the million and a half?
    38        A.  That is correct.
    39
    40   MS. STEEL:  But the average purchase is two meals; is that
    41        right?
    42        A.  The average number of people fed, that average number
    43        of people per transaction, is about 2, yes.
    44
    45   Q.   And the average purchase is a meal?
    46        A.  No.  I do not know what average purchase is.  I can
    47        tell you if someone comes into a McDonald's today and makes
    48        a purchase, and I add them all up, and I have a look at how
    49        many people were provided food and beverage for
    50        consumption, it would be twice the number of transactions. 
    51        Two people on the average will consume food or beverage 
    52        from each transaction. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What you said back in the beginning of July
    55        1994 was that there were then about 521 restaurants in the
    56        UK; there are an average of 470,000 till transactions a
    57        year; there were about 2 meals for each till transaction,
    58        so you were serving about 9,000 meals?
    59        A.  900,000 people.
    60

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