Day 095 - 02 Mar 95 - Page 06
1 A. Part of specification, well, it says "raw materials
2 found a piece of kidney" and it says "kidney fat" in
3 nytes(?). Nytes is a specific cut of boneless meat. It
4 means 90 per cent lean. What he found is that going over
5 the, inspecting the containers which are normally 2,000
6 pounds per container, he found a piece of kidney fat which
7 is, according to our specifications, they should not be
8 there and he found a piece of kidney.
9
10 Q. The problems that are listed on this page, "the meat used
11 in forming was too warm causing various product defects";
12 then in the earlier part it says, "The overall appearance
13 of the plant has improved in both cleanliness and attention
14 to detail. When on lunch break evaluate the need for
15 grinding ahead may affect texture and temperature"?
16 A. Can we go one by one? I cannot answer.
17
18 Q. OK, we will start -----
19 A. We will start with the meat used in forming. It was
20 too warm. Let me start by saying these are not problems
21 that ------
22
23 Q. They are not problems?
24 A. No. That is what we call opportunities for improvement
25 which is totally different, and in this case when it says
26 the meat was too warm it is referring to the meat, the meat
27 when it goes to the forming equipment which is in this case
28 is a Formax 26, that is the name of the piece of
29 equipment. When it goes there, it has to go at a
30 temperature at minus 1 to minus 2 degrees C. If it goes to
31 zero degrees C, then it is too warm and it causes some
32 defects in the patties that are not totally complete, the
33 patties, that might be a little too thin.
34
35 Those are the quality defects that he is talking about. It
36 has nothing to do with hygiene problems. In fact, it just
37 proves that our process is well ahead of anybody in terms
38 of temperature control, because we do not, when we process
39 it we do not go above zero degrees, because then our chain
40 will not work at that temperature for our patties. That is
41 what it says on the bottom, it says that the 4-1 which is
42 the quarter pounders were too thin.
43
44 Q. What about on the same matter, "when on lunch break
45 evaluate the need for grinding ahead may affect texture and
46 temperature", what does that mean?
47 A. What happens is that we have a process of checking the
48 grinding plates to see if there is -- the grinding plates
49 are designed to remove pieces of bone that may be there,
50 pieces of cartilage that may be there. So, there is a need
51 for inspection after the breaks to see what is there, to
52 determine the quality of the meat that is coming into our
53 plant.
54
55 What he is referring, that if you do not do that ahead of
56 time it may cause texture problems. It may cause, it can
57 cause over-pressure so that the quality of meat, it ends
58 up, it could end up being more like the texture of a hard
59 dog, if I can give an idea, what it looks like, as opposed
60 to the texture of a hamburger, where we want bigger
