Fresh air from Canada are a hot sale in China
With pollution levels high in Beijing with its first ever red alert last week, sales of bottled Canadian fresh mountain air in China has surged. Vitality Air has been selling for over a year but over the past two weeks, sales have rocketed with canisters of air being sold for up to £42 each, depending on size. A spokesman for the company say Chinese customers have emptied their stock.

Since China's capital city Beijing issued its first ever air pollution red alert last week, sales of bottled Canadian fresh mountain air to Chinese customers have soared.

Two entrepreneurs from Alberta have been selling Vitality Air for just over a year, but over the last two weeks their sales to China have increased dramatically, reports The People's Daily Online.

The red alert over air pollution was issued by Beijing authorities on December 7, lasting three days, amid the second bout of bad air this month. During this time PM2.5 levels - tiny hazardous airborne particles - exceeded 900 micrograms per cubic metre.

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A Chinese man shows how a canister is used. The demand for bottled air by Vitality has soared in China

The company is in talks with distributors in China wanting to stock their product in stores across the country

Vitality Air was co-founded by Moses Lam and Troy Paquette in 2014. They travel to high rocky mountains in Alberta, western Canada for the fresh air, which is home to over 600 lakes.

In the mountains, massive cans are filled through clean compression with pure revitalising air, something that is not found in Beijing during the harshest days.

On their website Vitalityair.com it says: 'We strive to provide a premium quality necessity that isn't always available.

'The best and the freshest necessity of life - fresh clean air and oxygen.'

Speaking to the MailOnline, Harrison Wang, Vitality Air's China representative, said: 'It's been a pretty wild ride for us as we only started to market the product a month and a half ago.

We got the website up and running, then put Vitality Air on Taobao – a Chinese website similar to eBay for online shopping – and we sold out almost instantly.'

Vitality Air: A screen grab from their website showing the different types of bottled air that can be purchased

Their first shipment to China was a little over 500 bottles of air, their next shipment in two weeks will be around 700.

'We have sold everything, and we now have a bunch of customers and a people wanting to be our distributors,' said Harrison.

It's an exciting time for the company, putting their product on the market in China has been a fast learning curve, especially when it comes to the country's e-commerce industry.

'Consumer spending power is like something we have never seen before and we are pleasantly surprised.

'We know the demand is big so we are being reactive instead of proactive, and doing our best to accommodate for the market needs and demands,' he said.

Moses and Troy from Vitality Air have spent time in China, and they are fully aware of the current pollution crisis.

Tourists donned masks in Beijing's Tian'anmen Square as smog levels reached a red alert warning for the first time ever on December 8 last week

Sales of pollution masks increased massively last week when Beijing was hit with a red alert pollution warning

'The pollution is certainly a problem and the government is taking aim to sort it, we see it has an issue and we want to give people the opportunity to inject a little bit of fresh into their daily lives,' said Harrison.

They initially put the fresh mountain air into sealed plastic bags and sold it on eBay for 99 cents (65p) per bag.

Now they are selling one canister of compressed air for up to $46 dollars (£42) depending on the size.

That's around 400 Yuan to Chinese residents for a can of air, which is 200 times the price of a bottle of mineral water - usually around two Yuan (20p).

As well as China, the company has had sales in countries including Iran and Afghanistan.

Businessman Chen Guangbiao made his fortune selling cans of air for 80p each to over 10 million people

Air is already being sold to residents and tourists in China in glass bottles and tin cans

Selling 'fresh air' in a bag or a bottle is not a new commodity in China.

Entrepreneurs from both home and abroad have been trying to capitalize on the country's pollution problem for a while.

In 2014 China planned to offer tourists affected by the smog, bottles of 'oxygen'.

The bottles were to be manufactured as part of a tourism scheme by authorities in China's south-west Guizhou Province.

In 2013 one lucky Chinese businessmen made millions selling soda pop-sized cans of air at 80 cents (53p) a can. Chen Guangbiao told reporters he sold 10 million cans in 10 days.

When the red alert was issued in China, the authorities announced plans to close schools, temporarily shut factories and take half of the city's cars off the roads.