Then Soros has Heinz puts worth over four hundred million dollars?
More likely they, Dow Jones, were phrasing the story so that non-traders would understand. But I guess anything is possible when it comes to Soros.
A put option (sometimes simply called a "put") is a financial contract between two parties, the buyer and the seller of the option. The put allows the buyer the right but not the obligation to sell a commodity or financial instrument (the underlying instrument) to the seller of the option at a certain time for a certain price (the strike price). The seller has the obligation to purchase at that strike price, if the buyer does choose to exercise the option.
Note that the seller (the writer) of the option is agreeing to buy the underlying instrument if the buyer of the option so decides. In exchange for having this option, the buyer pays the seller a fee (the premium).
I have bought puts for as low as $6.25 per contract (there are 100 units in a contract). So those 100,000 shares in question could have cost $625,000.00 or 6,250.00 depending on what they meant by 100,000.