Day 125 - 12 May 95 - Page 09


     
     1        A.  Let us say that it heightened our concern.  We have
     2        always been vigilant about the preparation of our
     3        products.  When we saw the impact that that situation had
     4        on one of our competitors, it just really caused us to
     5        review all of our operating procedures and practices.  We
     6        wanted to further tighten up those practices and procedures
     7        to make sure -- very, very sure -- that it would eliminate
     8        as much as we could the likelihood of that occurring in one
     9        of our restaurants.  So as a -----
    10
    11   Q.   Whatever the reasoning was en route, it was a result of the
    12        Jack-in-the-box experience, was it?
    13        A.  Yes.  I think it heightened the awareness of everyone
    14        in the industry, not just fast service restaurants, but all
    15        restaurants.  That was fairly devastating to
    16        Jack-in-the-Box.  It caused us to look into everything we
    17        did from A to Z, not just preparation of hamburgers but the
    18        handling of products.  We had discussions with our
    19        suppliers; went over their procedures, policies and
    20        procedures, and the handling of raw product coming into
    21        their back door; the type of wash that was used for the
    22        carcasses that came into their plant; the steps that they
    23        implemented in the various -- along the production line.
    24
    25        So, I think we did a very thorough job in examining all of
    26        the steps along the supply line, from the time that the raw
    27        product got into the back door of our suppliers to the time
    28        that the product was wrapped and presented to our
    29        customers.  We thought it was the intelligent thing to do,
    30        rather than, you know, dismiss the idea that that just
    31        happened to someone else; that it just made good business
    32        sense for us to be even more vigilant in our quality
    33        control procedures and our quality assurance programme, so
    34        that that would not happen to us.  We just felt that was
    35        the intelligent and smart thing to do.
    36
    37   MS. STEEL:  When you say it would not happen to you, it had
    38        happened to you 10 years previously?
    39        A.  No, not the -----
    40
    41   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That was not the context he said it, was it?
    42        (To the witness):  What I understood you to say is, rather
    43        than dismissing it as saying that this incident was just
    44        something which had happened to someone else -----
    45        A.  That is correct.
    46
    47   Q.   I will not repeat it.  By all means go on and ask about
    48        the other matter.
    49
    50   MS. STEEL:  I am confused actually by what he said. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think he was saying what one has heard in 
    53        any other number of other contexts.  It is very easy in
    54        life when someone in the same kind of business as yourself
    55        has a negative experience, to say:  "Well, that happened to
    56        him; it would never happened to me".
    57
    58   THE WITNESS:  Exactly.
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  A more intelligent, circumspect, approach

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