Sir Terry Leahy received a letter from Patricia Wheway, explaining that she found shopping for her six-year old son George extremely difficult and suggested the store introduce a new range of products.
Leahy was so impressed that he offered Wheway the job of managing the project. Wheway, a full-time housewife and mother has worked with Tesco for the past 18 months and helped the group develop a range of 124 products which exclude such things as; gluten, milk, soya, egg, maize, yeast and artificial additives.
The range sourced from branded food manufacturers has proved so popular that Tesco is now developing its own brand versions of many of the foods with Wheway switching her focus to the new project.
Tesco hopes to launch the range at the end of the year. Wheway found the whole experience of shopping for her son very frustrating. She said: 'I had to travel all over the place to find food he could eat. I mostly bought food from health shops as there was very little available.'