Noodle Maker Agrees to Pay Fine : Additives: The company had falsely claimed that Golden Ramen did not contain MSG.

A Costa Mesa company which falsely claimed that its Golden Ramen noodle products did not contain an additive suspected of causing allergic reactions has agreed to pay $153,000 to settle a civil complaint filed last year by the Ventura County district attorney’s office.

As part of the settlement, Union Foods also agreed to never again claim that its products are free of monosodium glutamate, or MSG, Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury said.

“This is a classic case of false advertising,” Bradbury said in a news release. “It is widely known that many consumers do not want to ingest MSG.”

The food additive is suspected of causing allergic reactions as severe as arthritis, depression and asthma, but scientists are divided on the issue, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda S. Groberg, who handled the case.

A spokesman for Union Foods, which had sold Golden Ramen noodles nationwide, said the company stopped distributing the products last year after the state Department of Health Services ordered the recall of hundreds of thousands of packages the agency concluded were carrying false labels.

Groberg said that Golden Ramen noodles were sold in packages that featured a blue-and-gold logo on the front that said, “Contains No MSG.”

In fact, the products contained hydrolized vegetable protein, which contains MSG, laboratory tests found, she said.

“They may argue that they thought the products didn’t have MSG in them, but we thought they should have done some studies before they made that claim,” Groberg said. “This is a significant penalty. We believe the conduct warrants it, whether it was negligent or intentional.”

The company admitted no liability or guilt in settling the lawsuit, she said.

Groberg said that Union Foods agreed to the settlement last week, just days after the company was acquired by new owners.

Richard Swartz, attorney for Union Foods, said that current owners quickly agreed to a settlement because they understood that they were legally responsible for the actions of the previous management.

“We felt we should immediately take responsibility for a mistake that had been made,” Swartz said. “We realized we couldn’t prove one way or another whether this was a mistake or somebody deliberately did it.”

The Golden Ramen product line has been discontinued, he said. “There are no improperly labeled products being sold by this company now.”

Sixteen months ago, however, Groberg said the district attorney’s Consumer Fraud Division received a complaint about Golden Ramen from inspectors in the county’s Department of Weights and Measures.

In June, 1989, tests by the state Department of Health Services confirmed the suspicions of a Garden Grove woman who had filed a complaint claiming that she had suffered an allergic reaction to the product.

“She said she had a runny nose, itching and irritation--a typical allergic reaction,” said Ozzie Schmidt, a supervising inspector at the health services’ office in Santa Ana.

The state quickly impounded 209,000 packages in a warehouse and ordered the company to recall 525,000 other packages that had been distributed to stores, Schmidt said. Most of the noodles were repackaged with accurate labels and shipped out under a new brand name, he said.