Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 65


     
     1        A.  No, I would not concede you that, Mr. Rampton.  Since
     2        doing my PhD the view I take these days is that given the
     3        facility with which food poisoning can be controlled, we
     4        could do an awful lot more with an awful lot less money and
     5        with a bit of intelligent control and developing more
     6        suitable and effective models.  We could actually achieve a
     7        substantial reduction in food poisoning with actually less
     8        effort and less expenditure than at the moment is being
     9        devoted to the issue.
    10
    11   Q.   Do you know, have the Defendants told you, Mr. North, how
    12        many meals are sold annually by McDonald's in this country?
    13        A.  I calculated for myself, Mr. Rampton, and correct me
    14        please if I am wrong, but I estimated 1.2 million burgers.
    15        Is that right?
    16
    17   Q.   1.2 million burgers?
    18        A.  Yes.
    19
    20   Q.   Annually?
    21        A.  Yes.
    22
    23   Q.   Well, the figure for the number of meals annually eaten by
    24        the customers in McDonald's in this country is something
    25        approaching 500 million.
    26
    27   MR. MORRIS:  That is 1 million burgers a day.
    28
    29   THE WITNESS:  Sorry, 1.2 a day I calculated.
    30
    31   MR. RAMPTON:  That is to say something in the order as at June
    32        1994, 940,000 meals per restaurant per annum when there
    33        were 521 restaurants; there are more now.
    34        A.  Defining a meal as a cover or as a sales episode?
    35
    36   Q.   A till transaction.
    37        A.  Yes.
    38
    39   Q.   That is going to include an awful lot of hamburgers and
    40        chicken products, is it not?
    41        A.  Yes.
    42
    43   Q.   How long, do you know, have McDonald's been going in this
    44        country?
    45        A.  I am afraid I would fail the test, sir.  I do not know.
    46
    47   Q.   OK, 20 and a bit years.  They started with one restaurant
    48        in Woolwich in 1974.  Of course, the number of meals sold
    49        annually has continued to increase over that period of
    50        time.  Given that length of time and that number of meals, 
    51        and that number of hamburgers and chicken products sold 
    52        over that period, how many cases would you expect at a 
    53        rough guess to be able to, say, were of salmonellosis had
    54        been attributed to McDonald's during that period?
    55        A.  I am not aware of any outbreak ever attributed to
    56        McDonald's.  That also applies to the majority of food
    57        premises in the whole of the UK.
    58
    59   Q.   Then it would not at all surprise you to be told there were
    60        in fact none?

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