Day 059 - 01 Dec 94 - Page 24

     
     1        the dark end of the colour range.  If you can imagine, the
     2        following week the same restaurant could be using french
     3        fries that were harvested just a week or two before with no
     4        natural sugars, you are suddenly right at the light end of
     5        the colour range.
     6
     7        The consequence of that is that a person cooking french
     8        fries in a restaurant tends to cook (as a lot of people do)
     9        by their eyes; whereas they should cook by time and
    10        temperature on a computer controlled basis.  But they look
    11        at the fries, they are still very light in colour, so they
    12        cook them longer to try to get some colour into them and,
    13        in fact, they cook the inside of the potato out, so if you
    14        were to break open the french fry there would be nothing
    15        there.  To overcome that, in the factory we apply a very
    16        light dextrose spray usually for the first three or four
    17        weeks of a newly harvested crop.  This will give a browning
    18        sugary effect as you fry the french fry in the fry vat, and
    19        stop the person in the restaurant overcooking the fry.
    20
         That is the only reason we do it.  It does add cost, it
    22        does add production cost to what we do.  We would prefer
    23        not to have to do it, frankly, because it would incur less
    24        cost.  But we do it for three or four weeks normally.
    25        Thereafter, there is no dextrose spray used again until the
    26        crop comes out of the ground in the following year.
    27
    28   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Does that mean that the potato which has had
    29        a build up of dextrose, if you cut the potato in half it
    30        would not necessarily look darker, but when you actually
    31        cook the french fry, the dextrose browns and the french fry
    32        goes browner or golden quicker?
    33        A.  That is correct, my Lord.
    34
    35   Q.   But does the increased amount of dextrose in the potato
    36        mean that the potato is sweeter?
    37        A.  Very marginally.  It is a very light spray that is
    38        used, so it is very, very marginally sweeter.
    39
    40   Q.   If cook an old potato, a nine months old potato, is that
         sweeter in flavour than that potato unsprayed would have
    42        been, say, seven months before?
    43        A.  Very much so.
    44
    45   Q.   So does the dextrose also add some extra sweetness as well
    46        as affecting the colouring so that you have a uniformity of
    47        sweetness throughout the year?
    48        A.  Yes, it must do, but I do not think it is one you could
    49        detect, and I have eaten enough french fries to know this,
    50        and I certainly would not be able to detect a sweetness 
    51        difference.  I would certainly see a colour difference. 
    52 
    53   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, very well.  Shall we take our break
    54        there?
    55
    56                            (Short Adjournment)
    57
    58   MR. RAMPTON:  Mr. Oakley, one might think of a typical
    59        McDonald's meal as some kind of a hamburger or chicken
    60        dish, some french fries and some kind of drink.  I suppose