Send this page to someone via email

A company that sells “fresh Banff air” in a bottle has seen a huge rise in demand from customers in China.

Vitality Air hand-bottled mountain oxygen from Banff and Lake Louise sells for $13 and up.

In recent weeks, the company has seen a surge in demand from China. The city of Beijing was choked by extremely severe air pollution earlier this month.

READ MORE: Schools in Beijing keep students indoors as air pollution reaches extremely hazardous levels

“We shipped a sample of 500 [bottles] to China,” Vitality Air co-founder Moses Lam said Wednesday. “They sold out within a week-and-a-half.”

He said the next shipment will be 4,000 bottles and approximately 1,000 of them are already pre-sold.

Lam believes the extremely poor air quality is driving up demand.

Story continues below advertisement

“That’s definitely sparked the interest. When the smog goes crazy, they all start using face masks and air filters.” Tweet This

Customers have been buying bottles of Alberta mountain air on Taobao, China’s equivalent to eBay.

“People were buying 10 bottles at a time,” Lam said.

While China is the largest market right now, Lam said the company received 150 requests from India on Tuesday.

“It’s been crazy, crazy.”

READ MORE: Edmonton company markets bottled Banff air online

When the company started, it had distributors in Edmonton and two locations in Banff. In June, it started selling bottles online.

Lam said they’re trying to keep up with the increased demand but “all of these are hand-bottled so it takes us a little while to manufacture and produce all this stuff.”

Lam is a University of Alberta business graduate who founded Vitality Air in 2014 with Troy Paquette, a former commercial diver.

Follow @Emily_Mertz