Day 024 - 15 Sep 94 - Page 05

     
     1   Q.   I am just going to ask you to briefly summarise what the
     2        dispute with McDonald's was that you were involved in on
     3        their ingredient brochures in 1986?
     4        A.  In early 1986, through co-ordinated communications
     5        with the New York Attorney General, I learned, my
     6        counterpart in California learned, that the New York
     7        Attorney General was investigating McDonald's for
     8        potential violation of New York law.  We then learned that
     9        McDonald's had agreed with the state of New York for the
    10        state of New York only, as we understood it, to put out on
    11        a short term basis nutrition and ingredient brochures in
    12        order, from the state standpoint, in order to make the
    13        information in those brochures available at the restaurant
    14        locations to New York consumers.
    15
    16        Because my office and other California Attorney Generals
    17        office had worked in the nutrition area in the past on
    18        other subjects, we believed it would be in the public
    19        interest to open an investigation into fastfood in general
    20        as to the ingredient and nutrition information.
    21
    22        We, therefore, invited a total of six or seven -- I cannot
    23        recall now -- of the top selling fastfood restaurants,
    24        including McDonald's, to meet with us in California in the
    25        first half of 1986 so that we could make known to them our
    26        concerns about American consumers not getting the truth
    27        about what was in the various products of these fastfood
    28        restaurants.
    29
    30        We did meet with them.  We did conclude that under our
    31        laws disclosure was required and, having heard from the
    32        companies -- in general, I cannot tell you what McDonald's
    33        told us at one meeting versus what Burger King told us at
    34        that same series of meetings, but the companies as a whole
    35        expressed to us the difficulty of labelling their products
    36        on a piece basis, so you would get the information you
    37        wanted on the hamburger as it was handed to you.
    38
    39        We, therefore, in order to accommodate the companies'
    40        marketing practices but also to accommodate our desires
         that the American consumers get the information they
    42        wanted, suggested to the companies that they agree to give
    43        out a brochure that would contain the ingredient nutrition
    44        information and to make known at the point of purchase in
    45        the stores that these brochures were available.
    46
    47        We asked McDonald's and the other restaurants to agree to
    48        do that.  McDonald's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken,
    49        Wendys Hamburgers, and Jack-In-the-Box restaurants agreed
    50        to do so.  I would note that McDonald's was the one to 
    51        fight us the strongest, and I believe McDonald's agreed 
    52        the last to do this.  The brochures did go out. 
    53
    54        There was some dispute where McDonald's, I think, pulled
    55        the wool over our eyes and jumped the gun in terms of
    56        telling the public that it had done this of its own
    57        accord, when in fact, I believe, in conclusion they only
    58        did it because they were dragged into it by the threat of
    59        enforcement action by our officers.  But they did do it.
    60        That was the first conflict with them in 1986.