Day 125 - 12 May 95 - Page 11
1
2 The big thing is that from my standpoint there were more
3 than sufficient procedures in place to safeguard that
4 happening. It is just a matter of making sure that those
5 procedures are followed. So, if we have incidents like
6 that, it means, in my view, that someone did not follow
7 recommended procedure and practice.
8
9 Q. But you still felt it necessary to increase the cooking
10 temperature after the Jack-in-the-box incident, so you had
11 not increased the temperature after the McDonald's food
12 poisoning incident to that level at that time -- to
13 whatever it is now, 149 degrees?
14 A. I think that is a fair -- that is not a fair
15 characterisation of it. Again we upgraded our equipment
16 during that period of time. The type of grills that were
17 being installed in our restaurants in the late 80s were far
18 superior to the type of grills that were used in the 70s,
19 in the early 80s. In the latter part of the 80s, 90s, we
20 introduced the two-sided cooking method, so that meant
21 again a change in the cooking time.
22
23 Q. Apart from the fact that the late 80, 90s is some
24 considerable years after 1982, if you are concerned about
25 your customers' well-being, I believe the two-sided cooking
26 method was introduced to speed up service time for
27 customers, to make the operation faster-moving, more
28 efficient?
29 A. That is not entirely true.
30
31 Q. Partly true then?
32 A. It is partly true. It spoke to a number of different
33 issues and we were quite satisfied with adding that piece
34 of equipment to our restaurants. To suggest, at least you
35 are inferring, that perhaps we should have looked at the
36 change in the temperature, you know, prior to the change in
37 the 90s, the internal temperature was acceptable by all
38 standards.
39
40 Q. So why increase it?
41 A. I think I have answered that question. Really we
42 wanted to even provide a greater degree of assurance.
43
44 Q. So prior to increasing it, you were not 100 per cent sure
45 that the procedure would be safe.
46 A. Maybe 99.8.
47
48 MR. MORRIS: In terms of the new grills, which we have implied
49 were brought in for efficiency of service, you say they
50 also had some food safety, improvement. In what way would
51 you say the new grills brought in in the late 80s were
52 safer than the ones previously?
53 A. It gave us a better quality product, a juicer product.
54
55 Q. In terms of food safety?
56 A. In terms of food safety, we were able to get, maintain,
57 the temperature of the product for a longer period of
58 time. There was less fluctuation in the temperature of the
59 grill, the two-sided grill, than the single grill. The
60 recovery of the two-sided grill was far superior to the
