Day 077 - 25 Jan 95 - Page 39
1 away from the meat which is what we want.
2
3 Q. Is it important that the intestines or the guts, or
4 whatever you like to call them, are not split or damaged in
5 the course of this operation?
6 A. Very important; if there is any E.colis where the
7 E.coli infection might come from.
8
9 Q. E.coli, I take it -- you did do a diploma or something in
10 bacteriology for your fellowship, did you not, an exam?
11 A. Yes.
12
13 Q. E.coli, I take it, is so-called because it lives in the
14 colon; is that right?
15 A. That is right. Everyone of us in this room has 184
16 E.coli in our guts.
17
18 Q. Minimum.
19 A. Minimum.
20
21 Q. Looking at the plan, you see there are lots of places, or
22 there seems to be quite a lot of places, called "sterile"
23 or "hand wash"
24 A. Yes.
25
26 Q. Or "apron wash". Does that seem to you to be an adequate
27 number for your purposes or not?
28 A. Yes. I mean, it is not an adequate number for my
29 purposes to have an EEC licence. It is the EEC licensing
30 Authority, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
31 will stipulate where the knife sterilisers are, where the
32 apron washes are.
33
34 Q. Put it another way, I take it you are concerned not to
35 poison the people that eat your food?
36 A. Well, I would hope so because we rely on repeat custom.
37
38 Q. I can see that, Mr. Walker. Is there any respect, do you
39 think, in which the conditions imposed by the EC are not
40 stringent enough to protect the customer and yourself
41 ultimately against that risk?
42 A. No, there no circumstances. There are enough
43 committees in MAFF and in Brussels working constantly on
44 setting the standards for these operations. There are
45 permanent committees sitting that are improving them all
46 the time and coming up with new ideas.
47
48 Q. Have you made yourself any input into learning in Europe
49 about the meat quality control?
50 A. Yes.
51
52 Q. What was that?
53 A. 1988 -- I do not think I have actually been officially
54 retired yet -- I was made Chairman of McDonald's Quality
55 Control Committee for Europe. In conjunction with other
56 members of that Committee, I went through every meat plant
57 that McDonald's have got in Europe, from Turkey to
58 Finland. We also wrote a manual on the things we are
59 discussing, basic standards, basic specifications, and we
60 had it translated into four European languages.
