The H.J. Heinz Co. sells more ketchup than anyone else in the United States, but in Russia it is barely a smudge on the sausage sold by Moscow street vendors.

		Graphic: Heinz pours into Russia

The Pittsburgh company yesterday said it bought a majority interest in St. Petersburg firm Petrosoyuz, Russia's No. 2 ketchup maker. The resulting joint venture to be called Heinz-Petrosoyuz has been approved by Russia's anti-monopoly regulators.

Financial terms were not released.

Heinz, the food company founded more than a century ago in Sharpsburg, is finding international markets increasingly attractive. After shedding several mature North American businesses a few years ago, Heinz has pulled about 60 percent of its sales from outside the United States and been venturing more deeply into places such as China, India and Indonesia, where they see potential for growth.

Heinz's choice of Petrosoyuz is meant to buy both market share and invaluable experience.

The joint venture should help Heinz compete for a bigger place in family kitchens as well as for contracts with food-service customers such as McDonald's. "This gives us leverage in Russia," said Heinz spokesman Michael Mullen, who estimated the ketchup business there is worth between $300 million and $400 million a year.

Despite some uncertainty over government policies, Russia is seen as becoming a more stable place to do business than it was just five or six years ago. Not long ago, a United Kingdom electronics retailer announced a deal to buy a 600-store Russian chain and before that Coca-Cola agreed to acquire a Russian fruit juice producer.

Petrosoyuz was founded in 1990 by entrepreneurs taking advantage of Russia's more open economy. They began importing food but later decided it would be more profitable to make their own, said Mullen.

Petrosoyuz now claims almost 60 percent of the nation's spreads/magarines market. It sells table margarine and vegetable oils under the brand name Mechta Khozyayki, which translates as "housewife's dream," and mayonnaise and meat dumplings under the brand Moya Semya, or "my family."

Heinz actually went into Russia seven years ago as a small player, making baby food and ketchup at a factory in Georgievsk. While it has picked up 3 percent of the country's ketchup market, Petrosoyuz claims almost 24 percent.

Still another St. Petersburg company, called Baltimor Holding, claims to have 50 percent. According to that company's Web site, 80 percent of Russians associate the word "ketchup" with "Baltimor."

The new joint venture company will marry the Russian operation, which employs more than 2,000 people and owns three plants in St. Petersburg, Otradnoe and Ivanovo, with Heinz's 350-employee operation in Georgievsk.

Ketchup will continue to be sold under the two companies' existing brand names, with Heinz serving as the premium choice and Petrosoyuz's largest ketchup line, Picador, serving as a mid-priced offering. Heinz has taken that tack in other countries, as well.

Petrosoyuz pulls in about $140 million in annual revenue compared to Heinz's overall revenues, last year, of $8.4 billion. The long-anticipated, relatively small deal by a company that regularly sells off various lines and picks up others did not trigger a round of reassessments by analysts.

"It seems very consistent with their strategy," said Christine McCracken, an analyst with FTN Midwest Research who follows the company. "It seems like a very logical acquisition."

Analysts may be paying closer attention to what Heinz decides to do with some of its other businesses that have been dragging a bit lately. Prudential Equity Group analyst John M. McMillin, who has a neutral recommendation on the stock, wrote in a recent report that he said the company may make some divestitures in its European seafood and New Zealand poultry businesses.

Heinz shares closed at $36.93, up 14 cents on the day.