Day 068 - 16 Dec 94 - Page 22
1 A. I do not know about that.
2
3 Q. It exports the majority of its production to America; yes?
4 A. I do not know about that. I only know the side of our
5 business. Just to give you an idea of their size or what
6 they export, their export levels are very, very small,
7 compared to our suppliers, let us say, the US; they could
8 not supply our beef need for not even an hour of our
9 production or needs. It is relatively big for a country
10 who is very small, but it is not, by any means, a world
11 player; it is not considered a world player.
12
13 If I may clarify, what they do export is primary cuts.
14 Primary cuts are cuts that are, let us say, a steak, cuts
15 that are high quality cuts.
16
17 Q. They export high quality cuts?
18 A. What are considered high price cuts. For our needs, we
19 do not use those cuts. We could not afford to use them, to
20 put prime steak in a hamburger.
21
22 Q. So the export that they do to America, for example, is high
23 price cuts, mainly?
24 A. That is correct. The rest of the secondary cuts are
25 left in Costa Rica.
26
27 Q. Right. That is what they make patties out of, do they?
28 A. That is correct.
29
30 Q. The high price cuts, are they frozen or are they fresh?
31 A. They have to be frozen in order for them to export it.
32
33 Q. So the Division Barranca slaughterhouse, what happens when
34 it goes from the slaughterhouse; is it deboned there or is
35 it taken somewhere else to be deboned?
36 A. The slaughterhouse and the deboning facility are in the
37 same place. Costa Rica is close to the northern part, the
38 south part of Mexico, so they do send some carcasses there
39 to be deboned in Mexico. They also debone locally for
40 local needs and export products for our needs. They
41 debone, they package the beef and they send it to where our
42 -- which is close by to our processing facility. We have
43 a separate McDonald's division within that facility that
44 operates. There is a clear separation. It has its own
45 people and its own management.
46
47 Q. I did not catch that last bit -- "there is a separate
48 deboning facility for McDonald's"?
49 A. No. The processing facility, it is divided, so that it
50 is our own side.
51
52 Q. Wait until we get to the processing. We have the
53 slaughterhouse. Everything goes through the
54 slaughterhouse, and then it goes to be deboned in the same
55 place, but some of the material they produce can be deboned
56 in Mexico or somewhere else in Costa Rica; yes?
57 A. For them, yes.
58
59 Q. For other people, or something, yes. So the process plant
60 -- the next stage is the process plant?
