Day 101 - 10 Mar 95 - Page 05
1 That is about as much as you can do.
2
3 If you have the food, or if you have similar food items,
4 then you can have that analysed, but the only thing that
5 would really help you is if you had a sample of the
6 particular burger, or whatever it was, in question. Does
7 that .....
8
9 Q. The library samples, that would only be of some use if a
10 customer complained immediately. It would not be any good
11 if they got sick a day later and come back and that box had
12 been used up, would it?
13 A. If you knew what code the product was, then you can --
14 we keep the library samples through to the end of their
15 life.
16
17 Q. But once the box is used, you have not got a record of the
18 code?
19 A. We would not have a record of the exact code if the box
20 was gone.
21
22 Q. What about cross-referencing? You get five complaints
23 about an under-cooked chicken in five different stores, do
24 you do things like looking at the time of the day when it
25 happened, whether it is was a busy period?
26 A. Yes, we do things like that. All the complaints are
27 held on the computer and reports are pulled off weekly. It
28 is very easy to see if there is a trend of complaints and
29 those would be followed up and investigated in a similar
30 manner.
31
32 Q. What have you found from doing that procedure, from
33 cross-referencing?
34 A. We have never found an outbreak of food poisoning that
35 McDonald's is responsible for.
36
37 Q. No. Say, for example, complaints about under-cooking, do
38 they particularly occur during busy periods, during the
39 rush hour, the lunch rush hour?
40 A. No, I do not think particularly during the rush hour.
41 I think the problem that we identified on a couple of
42 occasions where we have had under-cooked chicken was a
43 confusion over the buzzers, or putting the wrong basket
44 down. That is the only real issue, I think, which we are
45 trying to address.
46
47 Q. So would it not be appropriate to also cross-reference
48 between the most major incident of food poisoning, the
49 incident in Preston and any other similar complaints, for
50 example, either of food poisoning or of burgers being
51 under-cooked?
52 A. I do not understand what you mean by
53 "cross-referencing".
54
55 Q. Between one complaint and -----
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You suggest the sort of thing which might be
58 found to be a common feature, granted that the complaint is
59 of under-cooking, which is a common feature. He has said
60 that so far that rush hours have not been a common
