Lakeland Willow Water has reported a sales surge of up to 700% in Waitrose after celebrity cook Clarissa Dickson Wright decided to champion the brand’s cause.

The star, who found fame with her role in the Two Fat Ladies TV series, spotted the water at a garden festival earlier this summer.

Since then she has been on ITV’s This Morning show waxing lyrical about the water’s alleged healing properties, spoken about it on Radio 4 and included it in her Country Life column.

As reported first in The Grocer (February 1, p59), the water, drawn from a spring in the Lake District, contains salicin, a “natural aspirin”.

However, the company is currently unable to push this message following skirmishes with Trading Standards. Dickson Wright, however, faces no such censorship and has revealed how she believes drinking the water made a cyst she had had for 16 years virtually disappear and helped clear up a friend’s daughter’s eczema.

A spokeswoman for Lakeland, which is one of five companies taking part in The Grocer’s ‘A year in the life of’ series of features highlighting the highs and lows of launching a new brand, said the response to Dickson Wright’s support had been “overwhelming”.

She said Waitrose, which started stocking the brand in May, had reported a 700% increase in sales of the 500ml bottle variant and 500% increase in the 1.5 litre format on the day of Dickson Wright’s appearance on This Morning, July 15.