Day 032 - 06 Oct 94 - Page 51


     
     1        misleading.
     2
     3   Q.   As a food policy specialist, are you concerned with the
     4        kind of images which are being put over to describe
     5        manufacturers to describe their own food and products.
     6        A.  Oh, yes, indeed.  Indeed, the issue of misleading
     7        labelling in this country has occupied a lot of our time
     8        at the Food Commission recently.  There have been moves in
     9        America just culminating in this year the implementation
    10        of a food and drug administration act restricting
    11        misleading claims on labels to do with high fat, low fat,
    12        and what those definitions should mean.  We have no such
    13        restrictions over here.
    14
    15   Q.   Is that a development you would like to see more -----
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Is it not covered by the normal Trade
    18        Description Act provisions?
    19        A.  Unfortunately not.  The definition of light and low
    20        and reduced, and so on, are open to interpretation and
    21        have not been sufficiently defined by challenge.  So,
    22        unlike in America, we have no such strict definitions.  It
    23        is something I would like to see introduced over here, to
    24        answer your question.
    25
    26   Q.   We will just go on to the ingredients labelling.
    27
    28   MS. STEEL:   In this case we have seen some of the literature
    29        produced by McDonald's which now includes ingredient
    30        information, but has that always been the case?
    31        A.  No, it has not.  I have been very pleased to see that
    32        not only McDonald's but several other fast food companies
    33        have started to produce such information, but at the time
    34        of writing the book I wrote in 1986/87, no such
    35        information was available in this country.  It had,
    36        however, started to come out in the United States. In fact
    37        one of the motivations for writing the book over here was
    38        to be able to reproduce such information in an accessible
    39        form and, perhaps, prompt the main fast food companies
    40        into revealing the information over here.
    41
    42   Q.   In your book, which if anybody wants to know is document
    43        No. 54 in the Defendants' documents, on page 125 you say
    44        that McDonald's can supply their nutritional tables to
    45        people who ask, but will not release their ingredients
    46        lists.
    47        A.  That was the case at the time.
    48
    49   Q.   "They were prepared to give the London Food Commission
    50        details of some additives to be found in some of their 
    51        products, but to our independent consumers they wrote 
    52        saying they would investigate their queries.  At the time 
    53        of going to press, over ten months later, nothing further
    54        had been heard."  In the bundle of documents that have
    55        been served with your statement, the references, sorry, at
    56        No. 6 there should be a letter.  Have you got a copy of
    57        that letter?
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I read it overnight.  It is from the woman
    60        in the North East of England or to a woman in the North

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