Day 105 - 16 Mar 95 - Page 53


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You answer the question.
     3        A.  Not necessarily so.  I have been critical of the
     4        industry in my day and I have published articles to that
     5        effect, but I would hesitate to be unduly critical of an
     6        industry with which I have been associated for so many
     7        years.
     8
     9   MR. MORRIS:  If you cast your mind back to the swab documents,
    10        without getting them out?
    11        A.  Yes.
    12
    13   Q.   When we looked at the 500,000, it was above 500,000 samples
    14        in lamb as it happened, there was also a million in the
    15        beef; when would you start saying that meat was
    16        unsatisfactory?  Is a million about the point where you
    17        start getting worried about the quality?
    18        A.  Could I say that sort of visual judgment of the quality
    19        of meat is.  In many respects, from a quality point of
    20        view, more important than bacterial counts when the meat
    21        began to smell or look dark or otherwise aesthetically
    22        unacceptable.  That is when I would consider it unfit.  In
    23        terms of health and disease, I would consider it unfit.  If
    24        I had a microbiological report telling me it was
    25        contaminated with a pathogenic organism  -----
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think what you are really being asked is if
    28        there is a level of TVC or TCC at which on its own you
    29        would say "no", what is that?
    30        A.  Yes, that would be 10 million because at that stage
    31        physical signs of spoilage begin to appear.  If I have a
    32        piece of meat which looks all right, by that I mean it does
    33        not smell, it is not slimy, it has a high bug count, let us
    34        say 3 million per gramme, I would say that meat has to be
    35        processed and eaten as quickly as possible.  There is not
    36        necessarily a health risk to it.  We are discussing
    37        quality, really.  So, there is a relationship between the
    38        microbiological counts and physical appearance, remembering
    39        that Total Viable Count tells you nothing about the safety
    40        of the meat.
    41
    42   MR. MORRIS:  So McKey's figure or watershed for being
    43        unsatisfactory, 10,000,000 which we have heard in court,
    44        10,000,000, although Mr. Rampton does insist it is
    45        5,000,000, but Mr. Walker said it is 10,000,000 ----
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That is a matter of fact I have to decide.
    48
    49   MR. MORRIS:  It is something between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000.
    50 
    51   MR. RAMPTON:  To resolve the problem --- 
    52 
    53   MR. MORRIS:  It is an important question; I do not want
    54        Mr. Rampton to intervene.
    55
    56   MR. RAMPTON:  -- may we take McDonald's specification which is
    57        10,000,000?
    58
    59   MR. MORRIS:  No, I am talking about the McKey's specification
    60        for acceptance -- whether it is either 5,000,000 or

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