Beijing's recent red alert for smog has been a stroke of good fortune for at least two Canadian entrepreneurs, whose bottled air products have reportedly been instantly selling out in China with Chinese consumers sucking down as much fresh air taken from the mountains of Alberta as they can.
Vitality Air has received global orders from other countries and will be sending its first 500 bottle shipment to China this week, according to CNBC.
"In China fresh air is a luxury, something so precious", says Harrison Wang, Vitality's China representative. It is also being sold in North America, India, and the Middle East. A bottle of mineral water in China often costs less than RMB2.
According to Lam, another 4,000 bottles are en route to China but most of that shipment has already been purchased.
Canadian company Vitality Air is selling bottled air and the Chinese are snapping it up.
The second bag sold for £105, and the duo realised there could be business potential in selling air.
"One bottle of air wouldn't help". In a December 8 Christian Science Monitor report, China correspondent Peter Ford wrote that the Beijing government issued the red alert over tiny particles of pollution that hang in the air, known as PM2.5.
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Liang Kegang, an artist in Beijing, sold a glass jar of air from southern France a year ago for almost $800.
The cans of air are in high demand during this time when the air in China's capital is extremely hazardous.
Some users of the products claim that they have been relieved of heavy breathing and dizziness after using VitalityAir's "premium oxygen".
Edmonton-based Vitality Air has found a market for Rocky Mountain air in smog-plagued China.
"It's very labour intensive but we also wanted to make it a very unique and fun product", says co-founder Mr Lam.
"We may have bitten off more than we can chew". Lam's parents have told him, however, not to quit his day job, and he hasn't.
