Halewood driving sales at Willow Water

HALEWOOD International is ramping-up sales and production at its Lake District-based mineral water brand Willow Water.

Based at Flookburgh near Grange-over-Sands and owned by Liverpool-based Halewood for the last year, Willow Water’s bottling plant’s output is to be more than trebled from 1.1 million litres to 3.5 million litres of water a year.

Significant supply deals have already been signed with major retailers Sainsbury’s, Tesco and most recently Asda, allowing the product to be sold in North West stores.

Bosses hope this will be the first step towards Willow challenging the ‘power brands’ such as Perrier, Volvic, San Pellegrino and closer to home Buxton and Harrogate.

Ron Young, managing director of Willow Water and Halewood’s soft drinks division, said his growth strategy is built around the brand’s Lake District heritage.

“Everyone loves the Lake District, and knows it, it’s a fantastic part of the world and there are 16 million people coming here every year. Our aim is to capitalise on this by maximising our presence in the Lake District and with retailers in the surrounding towns.

“Once we have got the right sales within in the locale, we can talk to buyers about a national listing.”

Mr Young says Willow Water is a “unique product” in terms of taste and potential health benefits in terms of mineral content, particularly calcium and salicin.

The product takes its name from the fact that the water is filtered through what was once a prehistoric forest of white willow trees.

Aside from its supermarket sales channels, Willow Water is stocked by Booths – the Lancashire supermarket chain is a keen stockist of regional produce – and Westmorland services at Tebay, Cumbria.

Through Halewood’s links – Crabbies alcoholic ginger beer brand is club sponsor – Willow Water supplies Hibernian Football Club in Edinburgh and Carlisle United FC too.

Further afield, Willow Water is sold worldwide via Amazon and has been exported to Japan for several years, where it is popular for its English heritage and was recently mentioned on a television beauty show – prompting a further spike in interest.

Mr Young says the brand, which has eight staff and annual sales of more than £500,000, has plenty of scope for growth. It is licensed by the Environment Agency to extract up to 96 million litres of water a year from the spring.
 
The water was first launched as a commercial product in 2003 after a spring was discovered on land owned by farmer Phil Lynott.