Day 068 - 16 Dec 94 - Page 25
1 again to get to the point you have in mind as quickly as
2 you can.
3
4 MR. MORRIS: Yes. The McDonald's line is only part of the
5 plant. Do you know if it is 10 per cent of the total
6 production of patties, or five per cent?
7 A. I do not know.
8
9 Q. Any idea, roughly? Are we talking about something less
10 than 10 per cent or something more than 90 per cent?
11 A. I have not seen their operations and I have not asked
12 that question. I know we are a small part.
13
14 Q. A small part. So this McDonald's line which separates off
15 the patty production, is that where the McDonald's material
16 is separated? What I am saying is, in this process,
17 basically, the slaughterhouse, the deboning, everything is
18 all together at that stage, is it?
19 A. We identify -- yes, we identify from the Barranca, from
20 the slaughterhouse, how the animals -- we have
21 specifications to end up with the product that we have,
22 just to make sure.
23
24 Q. The animal welfare, for example?
25 A. The whole thing as to this is that what we want all the
26 way to little details: "You should not have this amount of
27 fat, you should trim this, and these are the specific cuts
28 that we want." That is identified, and they know, when
29 they start the operation, this is for McDonald's. So the
30 employees know the specification, and everything is
31 identified. So at any given time you can look at our
32 product and the facility, raw materials or finished
33 product.
34
35 Q. But they do not have a separate McDonald's line in the
36 slaughterhouse or a separate line for deboning?
37 A. No. They would start, let us say, on a Monday with one
38 of the things we had agreed that they will run our products
39 first. The only reason -- just so that they know it is our
40 product for sure, and we have no control over previous
41 processes, so we have no idea. We want our product to run
42 first.
43
44 Q. That is the process plant?
45 A. At the slaughterhouse.
46
47 Q. At the slaughterhouse?
48 A. Yes. At the process plant, it is separate, so they
49 know. But when we share the facility at Barranca, they
50 will start -- we only run it for, say, half a day, it would
51 be couple of hours. They run the slaughterhouse to fulfil
52 our needs. So we ask that to be at the beginning of the
53 day, whether it is Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
54
55 Q. So the general setup would be that, on Mondays, a load of
56 cattle get slaughtered, then they are deboned, then they
57 end up going through the McDonald's line on the process
58 plant?
59 A. Yes.
60
