Day 150 - 07 Jul 95 - Page 52
1
2 Q. Would you have tolerated anyone doing it?
3 A. I would not have -- I would not have tolerated it.
4
5 Q. Do you think that the store would have become Store of the
6 Year if it were going on?
7 A. No. It may well have gone out of business had it been
8 doing those sort of practices.
9
10 Q. Did you give any instructions to Mark Davies or anyone else
11 to use less lettuce in the burgers to improve the yield
12 performance, whatever that means, of the Colchester store?
13 A. No, I did not.
14
15 Q. What about in relation to cheese in the burgers?
16 A. No.
17
18 Q. What practically would have been the effect on the look of
19 that particular item of food if you had been doing that?
20 Would it could have been noticeable?
21 A. Yes, with respect to cheese, for example, because we
22 use, I suppose, two inches by two inches, perhaps, or three
23 by three, then if I take the logic correctly, if I was
24 asking them to use less, I could then use another part of
25 that cheese slice somewhere else, well, that does not give
26 enough to do that. In terms of the cheese that we use on a
27 quarter pounder or a Big Mac, they are whole slices of
28 cheese.
29
30 With respect to lettuce, I think at the time we only had
31 the Big Mac product, so that in terms of appearance the bun
32 itself is probably again two or three inches across. So
33 you are talking about a very small amount or a small area
34 to cover with lettuce.
35
36 So, to reduce it by any sort of means that could improve
37 the yield would be to virtually put nothing on it in the
38 first place. So, in practical terms, I would have
39 customers coming back with poor product.
40
41 Q. Would it have been a sensible use of time to, I do not
42 know, be cutting the cheese up?
43 A. It is a far better use of time to encourage better
44 business through great staffing, good quality products,
45 adhering to the processes and building custom that way.
46 This is not a way to build a business; it is one way to
47 destroy it.
48
49 Q. Were you aware of that practice with the lettuce and the
50 cheese going on at Colchester?
51 A. I was not.
52
53 Q. Would you have approved of it?
54 A. No.
55
56 Q. Would you have tolerated it?
57 A. Absolutely not.
58
59 Q. Just one final question, which is something, perhaps,
60 I ought to have asked you about earlier: Are you aware of
