Day 099 - 08 Mar 95 - Page 58
1 A. You would not really expect there to be any worms in
2 the restaurant. The only place I could possibly think
3 where worms might be in a restaurant is in the dining area,
4 in some of the pot plants that are used. But certainly you
5 would not expect to find a worm crawling around in the
6 kitchen area or in any of the storage areas.
7
8 Q. Supposing it was not in the salad, could you expect to find
9 a three inch long live worm, for example, in or on a bun?
10 A. Well, it certainly would not be in the bun. The buns
11 are -- it certainly would not be alive in the bun.
12 Obviously, the buns are cooked in an oven and then
13 prepacked. Again they are sliced, so the fact that the
14 worm was intact it would again have to be very fortunate to
15 survive that process.
16
17 Q. I know you will think this silly, but is there any way in
18 which it could get into rather than on to a McNugget and
19 Chicken McSandwich? I think in this case he was eating a
20 Big Mac -- yes, he was according to the newspaper.
21 A. The meat, obviously, the meat in the Big Mac goes
22 through a grinding system.
23
24 Q. I know. Then it is frozen?
25 A. And then it is frozen almost immediately, yes.
26
27 Q. Do you know enough about worms to have a view about whether
28 a worm might survive that process?
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is it really worth taking it any further? We
31 will wait and see what comes of that.
32
33 MR. RAMPTON: Then it is said that on occasion a customer found
34 an inch long worm inside her fish bone, I take it that is a
35 filet-o-fish?
36 A. Yes.
37
38 Q. Might somebody find a worm inside a piece of, well, start
39 here: The filet-o-fish is made of cod, is it not?
40 A. That is correct.
41
42 Q. Might they find a worm as long as an inch inside a
43 filet-o-fish?
44 A. Yes, yes, they might well do.
45
46 Q. What sort of a worm would that be?
47 A. It would be a parasitic nematode worm.
48
49 Q. That is in the muscle of the fish, is it?
50 A. It is, yes.
51
52 Q. Can you turn to appendix 2 behind your second statement,
53 please? Before you look at the document, is there a
54 permitted tolerance in cod or other white fish of parasitic
55 nematode worms?
56 A. Yes, it is a recognised fact that they will be present
57 in the flesh of these animals.
58
59 Q. If you look at this document, it says: "Frozen portions of
60 white fish, battered and crumbed". Where does this
