Day 296 - 07 Nov 96 - Page 24
1 country, is it not?
2
3 MS. STEEL: 22 million.
4
5 MR. RAMPTON: The latest figures from Mr. Fairgrieve showed
6 that -- it is only a market research extrapolation so it
7 has to be treated with some caution -- but that
8 extrapolation suggests that the McDonald's customer base in
9 the course of the year, that is to say people who have been
10 once or more often in the course of the year is 22 and a
11 half million, 22,511,000 to be precise. That was in 1995.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, 1 percent is 225,000, if that is right.
14
15 MS. STEEL: Between 2 and 4 percent.
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: So 2 percent would be about 450,000 and 4
18 percent is about 900,000.
19
20 MS. STEEL: I cannot get my head round this at the moment.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have made my own little note to that
23 effect. If you think it is wrong, you can put me right.
24 But it is all on the basis of that 38 percent and 22 and a
25 half million figure.
26
27 MS. STEEL: Yes.
28
29 MR. MORRIS: The most important point is McDonald's gives the
30 impression that, all right, if it is just 22 million people
31 are there -----
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Ms. Steel has made the point in relation to
34 the States and I assume she is now making the same one.
35
36 MS. STEEL: The same applies to the UK.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The inconsistency between banging on about
39 balance and targeting the people who are eating there quite
40 a lot already.
41
42 MR. MORRIS: Yes, that the company is actually completely
43 dependent on loyal clientele, a small percentage of
44 population make, in the USA, 77 percent of all the visits,
45 so the typical McDonald's visitor is in fact someone who is
46 eating there regularly. And that is the point. Not only
47 are they dependent on those customers, but they actually
48 target those customers to increase that regularity of
49 visits.
50
51 MS. STEEL: On top of the evidence from the company, we would
52 say -- well, there is also the evidence referred to by Dr.
53 Tim Lobstein and Fiona Winters, who was accepted under
54 Civil Evidence Act by the Plaintiffs, her surveys, or the
55 surveys that she carried out. The one in 1987 had found
56 that 31 percent of people questioned at fast food stores in
57 Peckham ate fast food every day.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What was the proportion again?
60
