Day 037 - 14 Oct 94 - Page 38
1 products as a valuable part of a healthy diet an extremely
2 effective marketing device?
3 A. As I have already mentioned, healthy eating is perhaps
4 the most, if not one of the most, concerns now amongst
5 consumers generally. In recent years we have seen
6 manufacturers falling over themselves to make claims about
7 healthy eating, specifically about healthy food products.
8 Some of them have been very well established; others have
9 not, unfortunately.
10
11 I believe it is the role of the media and everybody else,
12 myself included, to focus attention where there is a clear
13 credibility gap between what is being sold and what is
14 being claimed and to press and press and press for better
15 quality food, healthier food, which we now know more or
16 less what it is, so that we can do something about the
17 diseases that currently afflict us. That is my view.
18
19 Q. You then said in the next paragraph that McDonald's health
20 claims for their foods?
21 A. Yes.
22
23 Q. Or: "A very valuable part of a healthy diet is
24 provocative and reckless", that statement?
25 A. Yes, it is.
26
27 Q. "Then they must also expect to be robustly challenged"?
28 A. Absolutely.
29
30 Q. You would agree it is provocative?
31 A. I agree with what I have written, yes.
32
33 Q. I have to say it because it has not been put on the
34 record.
35 A. Fine.
36
37 Q. To move on to remaining matters, you have said: "The
38 plaintiffs' Statement of Claim refers to 'synthetic' chips
39 and lack of bulk in the plaintiffs' food. I would
40 consider that spraying a sugar solution onto chips could
41 indeed result in a product which might be termed
42 'synthetic'". As a marketeer, it would not actually be
43 synthetic, would they, strictly speaking?
44 A. Can you please define what you mean?
45
46 Q. What I am saying is ----
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, there is a limit to the extent to which
49 your Lordship can derive ----
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: This is really for me to decide, is it not?
52 Can this help me?
53
54 MR. MORRIS: As a marketeer, would you say that in describing
55 chips as "synthetic" ----
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How can he help as a marketeer because it
58 is -- McDonald's do not use the word to market their food,
59 do they?
60
