THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, March 9, 1996                TAG: 9603090435
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: D2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA                       LENGTH: Medium:   56 lines

UNDERWEIGHT KETCHUP BOTTLES REMOVED FROM STORES IN 15 STATES VA., N.C. ARE AMONG THOSE WHERE HEINZ DOESN'T MEASURE UP.

H.J. Heinz Co., which stakes its pride on selling thick, heavy ketchup that comes out of the bottle slowly, is in trouble for selling underweight products in at least 15 states.

The nation's leading ketchup maker isn't pouring enough of it into its oversized plastic bottles, the federal government said Friday. Fifteen states - including Virginian and North Carolina - have returned to Heinz 168,987 bottles that were below their advertised weight. In Philadelphia, nearly 81,000 bottles were returned.

The Pittsburgh-based company could face $15,000 in fines in Philadelphia for underselling consumers by about 2,500 pounds of ketchup, the city's Licenses and Inspections Commissioner Robert S. Barnett said.

``They are getting a little less than they paid for'' in Heinz' 28-, 40- and 64-ounce bottles, Barnett said.

Heinz, which has $8 billion in sales of ketchup, tuna, Weight Watchers frozen dinners and pet food, offered Friday to replace any unopened, underweight bottles with fresh ones. It also said it had begun putting more ketchup than normal into the large-sized plastic bottles.

``The average amount of underweight ketchup is approximately half a teaspoon per bottle,'' spokeswoman Deb Magness said, adding: ``We're not tolerating any circumstances that affect the integrity of our products.''

Moisture loss from the plastic containers might have caused the weight problem, Magness said.

Heinz, which has made ketchup for more than a century, met federal standards when the plastic bottles were filled at manufacturing plants in Fremont, Ohio, and Tracy, Calif., she said.

A California consumer's complaint last month prompted a nationwide survey by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which so far has found underweight bottles in 20 states. Fifteen of the 20 have removed the ketchup from the shelves.

The institute, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, commissioned 43 states and three large cities - Philadelphia, Boston and Seattle - to test random Heinz bottles last week.

The other states that have removed underweight ketchup include: Arkansas, California, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia.

In Philadelphia, inspectors weighed 96 individual bottles at three grocery stores and a warehouse, and found 72 were below advertised weight. The discrepancy ranged from 1/32 of an ounce to 1 5/8 ounces underweight, Barnett said. by CNB