Beech-Nut Nutrition Corp. paid a $250,000 state...

Beech-Nut Nutrition Corp. paid a $250,000 state fine for selling and advertising apple juice for babies that was actually apple-flavored sugar water, New York officials said. Beech-Nut, based in Ft. Washington, Pa., and two of its executives were named in November, 1986, federal indictments for shipping 5 million jars of misbranded and adulterated apple juice for babies between 1978 and 1983. The product was actually made from synthetic concentrate and contained little or no apple juice, authorities discovered. The juice had been bottled at the firm’s Canajoharie plant in central New York. The state case against Beech-Nut was closed with payment of the fine, state Atty. Gen. Robert Abrams said. Beech-Nut pleaded guilty last fall to 215 counts of violating federal food and drug laws and agreed to pay a $2-million fine.