Day 098 - 07 Mar 95 - Page 36

     
     1   Q.   So they might get that sometimes?
     2        A.  I do not know, as I said yesterday.
     3
     4   Q.   I think I have one more question on hygiene.  When you do
     5        your environmental analysis do you have a grading system
     6        for results?
     7        A.  Yes, we do.  It is purely an in-house one.
     8
     9   Q.   What is the grading system?
    10        A.  From memory, if we get -- what we use at the moment is
    11        small contact plates which are about this size -- if we get
    12        less than 100 colonies on that plate, we deem it
    13        satisfactory.  Between 100 and 200 then, we say could do
    14        better, for want of a another word, and over 200, we say
    15        that is unsatisfactory.
    16
    17   Q.   Do you ever send any samples to outside laboratories at
    18        all?
    19        A.  Yes, we do.
    20
    Q.   Do they have a grading system, a different kind of grading
    22        system -- maybe I should show you -----
    23        A.  Sorry, do you mean environmental samples?
    24
    25   Q.   Yes, environmental samples.
    26        A.  We do not actually send environmental samples out to an
    27        outside laboratory.
    28
    29   Q.   But you send ---
    30        A.  Meat samples.
    31
    32   Q.   -- meat samples.  Why did you do that or when, not why?
    33        A.  Why?  Really, as a sort of correlation with our own
    34        checks to make sure that, obviously, if somebody wanted to
    35        challenge the results which we had got from our in-house
    36        sampling, we could back those up with the results which we
    37        get from our external laboratory.
    38
    39   Q.   Do the outside laboratories have a different grading
    40        system?
         A.  What do you mean by grading system?  This is for the
    42        meat samples, they do not have a grading as such.
    43
    44   Q.   The microbiological results?
    45        A.  Yes, they have a similar grading system to that which
    46        you might see at McKeys, in fact, probably tighter.
    47
    48   MS. STEEL:  How many people carry out the slaughter process?
    49        A.  Do you mean how many people on the slaughter line or
    50        how many people actually do the slaughtering part? 
    51 
    52   Q.   The slaughter part? 
    53        A.  The stunning, sticking?
    54
    55   Q.   Yes, and the driving them into the stunning pen?
    56        A.  Normally, there would be one person driving the cattle
    57        into the race, the single file race, before the stunning
    58        blocks.  The slaughter man himself -- sorry, the stunning
    59        operative himself would move the first cow in that line
    60        into the stunning box.