A MAN living with a severe pine nut allergy feels lucky to be alive, after nearly eating a sauce from Tesco which did not have an allergen warning in bold on the packaging - and he wants to warn other allergy sufferers.

Rory Cox, 24 from Chippenham had a lucky escape after noticing pine nuts were only listed in small writing under the ingredients on a jar of Tesco Finest Sun-dried Tomato Pesto Rosso, and not in bold like the other allergens.

Mr Cox bought the jar from Tesco Metro in Chippenham town centre on Sunday afternoon (October 7) after reading the allergen ingredients in bold, which only highlighted milk.

It wasn’t until Mr Cox’s girlfriend was serving up the dish made with the tomato pesto that he spotted pine nuts was listed in the ingredients.

Mr Cox said: “My allergy to pine nuts is extremely severe. I have ate traces on one occasion before and was in hospital for a very long time, so this could have killed me.

“When I rang Tesco to complain about pine nuts not being listed as an allergen I was very angry and I felt like Tesco didn’t take me seriously and like I was wasting their time.

“I received a half-hearted apology and they said they would pass my concerns onto the packaging team, which isn’t good enough.

“The fact that it is a tomato-based pesto makes you think that pine nuts are not an ingredient, especially if it is not listed in bold, and it sounded delicious to me.

“Pine nuts is a common thing that many people are allergic to and should be listed in bold with the other allergens, not just in small writing in the ingredients list.

“You’d think that this would be an important issue on all food shops’ mind after recent media attention and fatalities due to unclear food packaging.

“It’s been a blessing having allergens listed in bold since 2013, and people like me can scan the back of packaging to make sure it is safe for us, but it seems you can’t do that now.

“I want to warn other severe allergy sufferers, especially those with poor eyesight who may not be able to read the very small print, and might not be as lucky as I was to notice it.

“I was extremely lucky to notice before I ate it.”

A spokesman from Tesco said: “We thank Mr Cox for his feedback.

“The pesto product in question does mention in two places that it contains nuts.

“It states on the bottle under allergen advice that it ‘may contain peanuts and nuts’, as well as pine nuts being listed in the list of ingredients.”