CHRIS Hook has had more than his fair share of tragedy but he has bounced back time and time again.

In business he has found a recipe to help thousands of people on special diets and when his wife and son were found to be wheat-intolerant his quest became even more personal - a mission to produce the perfect garlic baguette.

But, for the man who pulled off the headline-grabbing 'coals to Newcastle' deal of selling pizza to the Italians, this is not as simple as it sounds.

For this baguette is aimed at the specialist and growing market of those suffering an intolerance to gluten and wheat ' and without those ingredients, it is more likely to look and taste like 'a rubber truncheon' than a mouth-watering savoury, says Chris.

In the eighties, when he was working for a Stockport firm specialising in gluten-free products, the choice of food for people with this allergy, was sparse ' and not very exciting.

'Bread came in a tin. It had a shelf-life of 12 months and, to be honest, it was fairly disgusting,' he smiles wryly.

Things have come a long way since then and the founder of Knutsford-based Nutrition Point, which has a big plant in Warrington, has played a key part in the revolution in this niche market.

It not only pioneered the introduction of gluten and wheat-free foods into the UK retail market, with all major supermarkets now having a 'free-from' section, but works hard to put taste and variety into food for those on restricted diets.

The baguette is the latest challenge ' and will be a lucrative business when it has been cracked ' for around one in 80 people in the UK suffer from gluten or wheat intolerance.

Nutrition Point

Chris frankly admits that the development of Nutrition Point ' started in a bedroom at home with a first year turnover of '15,000, now employing 22 people, with sales of '8m ' has not been easy.

It is certainly not something he ever thought he would be doing when he was at a naval boarding school in Ipswich.

Home was in the Lake District ' at Ulverston. His father, who had been an engineer in the navy, was working at the Vickers shipyard in Barrow, on the Polaris submarines.

Chris was destined for the Royal Marines, and got his commission. But a rugby injury forced a career rethink.

With a degree in physical education and geography, he started in sports management at a leisure centre in Oldham, before becoming a medical sales rep with pharmaceutical giant Roussel.

There he gained his first experience of nutrition and diet before moving on to Stockport specialist gluten-free firm Welfare Foods, where he became sales and marketing manager.

When the chairman of the family-owned firm died suddenly, however, it was thrown into turmoil and Chris eventually moved to work for an advertising agency in Knutsford, managing healthcare accounts.

Welfare Foods was later sold to the big Dutch conglomerate Nutricia, and Chris was headhunted to become sales and marketing director eventually joining the board with responsibility for launching new products.

He left to start specialist healthcare marketing and advertising agency Bee Hive.

It was during this time, that an horrific tragedy struck the family, when one of their daughters, Sophie, then aged seven, was abducted and murdered.

The killer, paedophile Howard Hughes snatched her in the middle of the night as she camped out in a tent with a young sister and cousin in the back garden of her uncle's Llandudno home.

He was sentenced to life for the atrocity and her grieving father went on to campaign passionately for changes to tighten up the law to curb paedophiles.

But that terrible night changed life forever for the close-knit family.

Chris makes it clear that Sophie will never be forgotten, and is still very much part of their daily lives.

A few weeks after her murder, Chris had to return to work. 'I was running my own company, and there were still bills to be paid. It was incredibly difficult, but I had to get on with it,' he says.

He was running the business through a recession, and without any financial support from the bank. In 1997, it merged with another to form Juice Advertising, which also specialised in healthcare accounts

But then came another blow as chemical giant Zeneca, which had paid the agency a retainer of nearly '1m, merged with Astra and decided to do its marketing in-house.
In 1999, the firm folded, going into receivership.

So Nutrition Point was born, originally set up to import a novel range of gluten, wheat-free baking mixes from the USA.

Disaster struck again, when the US company went into receivership. Chris's firm revamped the basic recipes and found another supplier to make them, but the loss of the American supplier put a considerable strain on finances

Only through personal borrowing could Chris pay the staff and maintain recipe development, but he firmly believed there was a market for the foods.

Wheat intolerant

Ironically, son Joe was found to be wheat intolerant, which led to his wife Julie, who had been told she had irritable bowel syndrome, finally being correctly diagnosed with the same condition.

'I had seen the struggle my wife had in catering for my son's intolerance, and I was keen to improve the choice of suitable meals she could provide him with, so I started to look at developing frozen gluten, wheat-free ready meals,' says Chris.

Initially no supermarkets were interested in the foods, so the business concentrated on prescription sales ' people diagnosed as coeliacs are entitled to basic gluten-free foods on the NHS.

The customer base grew slowly, and home delivery of frozen foods was another challenge ' using dry ice and polystyrene boxes with a guaranteed next day delivery.

One customer in the Orkney Isles was delighted when he took delivery of his frozen steak pies and beef lasagne 12 hours after placing his order.

After much persuasion, Sainsbury's agreed to start stocking the range and that started the ball rolling, with others, including Tesco and Asda recognising the need to cater for people with specific food allergies and intolerances.

Nutrition Point, which is opening a '20,000 testing lab this week, went on to link up with the Italian company Schar ' hence selling pizzas to Italy. Schar has a 76 per cent stake in the company, but Chris aims to one day buy out the Italian firm.

'Nutrition Point's mission is to make gluten, wheat-free food as mainstream, convenient and tasty as normal food. No one on a special diet should be discriminated against, everyone has the right to enjoy what they eat.

'My son can have friends around for tea, they all eat a pizza. Many of his friends prefer our pizza.'

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