Seeking to keep itself from getting entangled in the presidential election campaign, the H.J. Heinz Co. insists that there should be no political considerations in what kind of ketchup you put on your freedom fries.

Reacting to agitation and speculation carried on conservative talk radio and the Internet, the Pittsburgh-based food firm issued a press release this week emphasizing that Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, has no role in the management of the firm that is the source of her inherited wealth.

A variety of Web-based forums and talk shows have spotlighted the Kerry-Heinz connection. Several Web logs have featured debates over whether Heinz products should be boycotted to make a statement about presidential politics.

"In light of some misleading speculation,'' the company said in a news release, "The H.J. Heinz Co. would like to make it clear that neither Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry, Sen. John Kerry, nor any member of their family is involved in the management or the board of the H.J. Heinz Co.

Emphasizing that the firm is nonpartisan, the release goes on to point out that the company also has no connection to the Heinz family philanthropies, which some conservative groups have criticized for giving money to liberal causes.

"While there is connected heritage,'' said Debora S. Foster, the firm's vice president for corporate communications, "[Heinz] is a large company with diverse ownership. To put it in a very short sentence, we don't want the campaign to become a food fight.''

Foster, and Heinz, appeared to be attempting to walk a fine line between defusing potential controversy, by contradicting its premise, and fanning the flames, by pointing out the controversy to a wider audience.

"There is no particular story that we are responding to,'' Foster said. "There has been a limited number of stories, but we have heard that there is a great deal of talk on talk radio connecting the Heinz company with either the campaign or the family.''

The release goes on to note that the last member of the family to be a company manager was H.J. Jack Heinz, II, the father of the late Republican senator who was Teresa Heinz Kerry's first husband.

It also notes that the family charities substantially reduced their holding in Heinz stock in a 1995 move to diversify.

The company's statements have not silenced the Kerry-flogging bloggers. A particular target of their criticism is the fact that Kerry has assailed the outsourcing of American jobs while the firm that is the source of his wife's wealth operates across the globe.

On an Internet forum, Blogforbush, for example, is this posting:

"It is interesting how Kerry gets a free pass on the fact that his wife's company has operations around the world. H.J. Heinz Co. has 79 factories of which 57 (how ironic) are located in places like Poland, Venezuela, Botswana, Thailand, China, and India. Think of the American jobs lost to those countries.''

The Web site also points to a recent column in the Times of India, which made a similar argument accusing Kerry of hypocrisy in opposing outsourcing, or "outsaucing,'' in the terminology of the subcontinental wag.

Kerry has repeatedly denounced "Benedict Arnold CEOs'' who move American jobs overseas. In a major speech in Detroit yesterday, Kerry proposed changes in corporate tax laws designed to reduce incentives for American firms to transfer jobs and operations abroad.

The Heinz company's statement defended its foreign manufacturing operations, noting that they serve local markets around the world rather than producing goods for the domestic market. Sixty percent of the company's sales are outside the United States.