by teresa f. lindeman pittsburgh postgazettea federal jury in pittsburgh has to decide if the idea for dip & squeeze ketchup packets was imported from europe or delivered to h.j. heinz co. by a michigan man.for david wawrzynski to win his case, the detroitarea entrepreneur needs to convince the jury that he helped the pittsburgh food company solve the nagging problem of how to create a cleaner, more convenient singleserve package for fastfood restaurants that would also have a side effect of selling more ketchup.for heinz to prevail, the company needs to convince jurors that its european division had created a similar packet as far back as 2002 but efforts to bring the concept to the u.s. market had been bogged down in issues of cost, only to be revived during an innovation push in 2008.the civil case now in the u.s. district court for the western district of pennsylvania began when mr. wawrzynski filed suit in 2010, not long after the dip & squeeze launch.the case has changed courts and been through numerous twists and turns, finally landing in front of the jury in u.s. district judge arthur j. schwab&rsquos courtroom, which will decide whether the claim has merit. if the jury rules in mr. wawrzynski&rsquos favor, a second trial in june will determine any damages he should receive.monday brought opening statements, with the two sides laying out arguments that they were in the right.eugene boyle, attorney for mr. wawrzynski, described a series of events in which his client &mdash the operator of a food delivery service and a former restaurant owner who had been &ldquotinkering with condiment packaging since high school&rdquo &mdash reached out to heinz in 2007.frustrated with the lack of response, he wrote a letter to the company&rsquos thenceo, bill johnson, in early 2008 and ended up being invited to a meeting at the heinz research and development center in marshall.at that meeting, he was asked to supply 100 samples of his proposal, a package he called the little dipper that would allow diners to dip their french fries in ketchup without a mess.then, both sides seemed to agree, things began to break down.a former heinz packaging employee, bill rasile, testified that instead of receiving 100 samples of the package pitched by mr. wawrzynski, the company received a few handmade, leaking samples that didn&rsquot look like the original concept.mr. boyle described, in his opening statement, his client calling mr. rasile from a thirdparty packaging company that he was meeting with to have the samples made, only to be told the deal wasn&rsquot going to work out.mr. rasile conceded on the stand that he sent a note to his colleagues around then raising the concern that mr. wawrzynski had changed his design a few times and this could end up being a case where the entrepreneur would eventually claim credit for whatever heinz came up with.he and other former and current heinz employees testified monday that they had had ideas for singleserve ketchup packages for years that could be used in a couple of ways.craig caldwell, still employed in packaging at heinz, said it wasn&rsquot just a case of using the european model in the u.s., because the fastfood markets are different.&ldquoin europe, it&rsquos a cost. you have to pay for it &mdash to get condiments,&rdquo he said.in the u.s., heinz restaurant clients such as burger king and chickfila need the packets to be as inexpensive as possible since they hand the ketchup out free with purchases of food.a place like wendy&rsquos, mr. caldwell said, &ldquothey go through millions of billions of packets every year.&rdquoso when a dualfunction package that heinz attorneys said had informally been called &ldquodunk and squirt&rdquo turned out to cost a lot more than the traditional foil ketchup packets, that project was tabled in 2006, mr. caldwell said.somewhat murkier is what happened to revive the project and where mr. wawrzynski&rsquos idea fit in.mr. caldwell and mr. rasile confirmed that they planned to include his samples among eight other concepts in a july 2008 focus group meant to see what consumers would prefer. no matter the reason, heinz didn&rsquot receive the 100 samples and didn&rsquot include that concept in the research.in late 2009, mr. wawrzynski received a legal letter from heinz saying that the company was not interested in his product idea.in 2010, heinz introduced dip & squeeze with a splash. mr. boyle told the jury, &ldquoi heard george stephanopoulos talking about it on &lsquogood morning america.&rsquo &rdquoand, he said, &ldquodave&rsquos phone started lighting up.&rdquo family and friends were calling to congratulate him on the new packaging product, mr. boyle said.testimony is expected to continue today.teresa f. lindeman tlindeman@postgazette.com or 4122632018. first published march 30, 2015 118 pm 
