Day 068 - 16 Dec 94 - Page 14
1 imported beef in America -----
2 A. "Will not", did you say?
3
4 Q. Yes -- if it does not use imported beef in America, is it
5 right that that means you will not buy from outside of the
6 United States?
7 A. That is correct.
8
9 Q. When you say that the US DA assigns a number to the
10 establishment, what establishment was that they assign the
11 number to?
12 A. Where the beef comes from.
13
14 Q. The slaughterhouse or the process plant, or what?
15 A. Yes. For instance, in the documents -- I do not want
16 to elaborate a lot more -- in the documents that you
17 provided yesterday, it has an establishment number -- for
18 instance, our plant, the Tyson plant in Nashville,
19 Arkansas, the establishment number is P70100. That is USA
20 identified.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think what you are being asked is, in a
23 situation where there is an abattoir, for instance, and
24 then a processor, who is given the label number?
25 A. I am not following you.
26
27 Q. To whom do the US DA give the number? I can understand
28 that you may have plants where there is a live animal at
29 the beginning of the procedure and there is a patty or a
30 Nugget or something at the end; everything happens within
31 the same corporation, as it were. But if you have an
32 abattoir and then a deboning plant and then a processing
33 plant, before you come to your patties, who is the number
34 given to?
35 A. Oh, it is given to -- it comes with any -- when that
36 product is moved, it goes into any kind of package. That
37 package, whether it is a box or a container, must have that
38 establishment number, that label.
39
40 Q. So it can be identified where that box or where that
41 plastic bag, or whatever, has come from ---
42 A. That is correct.
43
44 Q. -- the contents of the box or the bag have come from; is
45 that right?
46 A. That is correct. It identifies where it originated and
47 where is it going to.
48
49 MR. MORRIS: Just to clarify that, then, does that mean that
50 every process plant has a number?
51 A. That is correct.
52
53 Q. Every slaughterhouse has a number?
54 A. That is correct.
55
56 Q. Does every farm have a number?
57 A. I do not expect their register, US DA -----
58
59 Q. If they are supplying beef, does the number of the farm
60 come and stay on the packaging?
