Heinz denies that beans means bucks for Kerry campaign

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From The Telegraph
By Alec Russell in Washington
(Filed: 31/03/2004)


Heinz began a campaign yesterday to distance itself from Senator John Kerry amid concern that the high profile of his wife, the heiress to the ketchup fortune, may be bad for business.The company contacted some of America's leading radio and television talk shows to try to quash rumours suggesting that revenue from sales would aid the campaign of President George W Bush's Democratic challenger.The focus of the rumours is Sen Kerry's colourful wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

The company has been deluged with e-mails and phone calls from customers, mainly Republicans, vowing to boycott Heinz products. Some Democrats have written in offering to buy more."We don't want to get involved in a fight," said Debbie Foster, a company spokesman. "We are about food, not politics. We don't take sides." Heinz denies that sales have suffered. It said it decided to act after a philanthropic trust chaired by Mrs Heinz Kerry was accused of funding a group that criticised Mr Bush over his use of footage of the September 11 attacks in his campaign.

The trust, The Heinz Endowments, and the group, Peaceful Tomorrows, which represents some families of September 11 victims, have denied any link. Mrs Heinz Kerry inherited an estimated fortune of $500 million (£286 million) in 1991 when her first husband, John Heinz, a Republican Senator and the heir to the ketchup empire, was killed in a plane crash.She, her three sons by her first husband, and the Heinz Endowments that she chairs sold most of their shares in 1995 and own less than four per cent of the company's stock.

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