A Canadian company that sells bottled clean air is seeing sales soar thanks to exports to China as pollution in the country worsens.

Vitality Air's clean air bottle. Photo: Vitality Air

Vitality Air was founded last year in the western Canadian city of Edmonton and began selling bottles of air to China less than two months ago, according to the Telegraph.

“Our first batch of 500 bottles of clean air sold out in four days,” revealed company co-founder Moses Lam.

Another large shipment of 4,000 bottles is also being prepared for export to China, with most of the shipment already booked, Lam said.

A 7.7-liter bottle of clean air taken from the Rocky Mountains in Banff National Park, Canada, costs more than $15, 50 times more expensive than a bottle of mineral water in China.

Most of the company's customers live in major cities in northeastern and southern China, which face frequent pollution warnings.

Xinhua on December 15 posted a photo of a hazy scene in downtown Shanghai with the caption: "Smog hits China again!" More than a week earlier, Beijing had issued a red alert for pollution and forced half of the cars off the roads.

Vitality Air isn’t the first Canadian company to sell clean air in China. Last year, Beijing artist Liang Kegang brought back a glass jar of clean air from a business trip to the south of France and auctioned it off to a group of about 100 artists and collectors. The jar sold for more than 5,200 yuan (about $800).

In 2013, millionaire Chen Guangbiao also sold cans of clean air taken from unindustrialized regions in China for 5 yuan ($0.77) a box.

Mr. Lam said he started the company as a joke when he and co-founder Troy Paquette offered to sell a bag of air for 50 cents on eBay. The second bag they sold for $160.

"That's when we realized there was a market for this product," said Mr. Lam.

Vitality Air's clean air comes from the Rocky Mountains in Banff National Park, Canada. Photo: Alamy

Vitality Air sells clean air and oxygen across North America, to India and the Middle East, but China remains its biggest foreign market.

Harrison Wang, the company’s China representative, said their customers are mostly wealthy Chinese women who buy for their families and as gifts. Luxury apartments and luxury clubs also buy the products.

"In China, clean air is a luxury, a very precious thing," said Mr. Wang.

He also said that many distributors have contacted the company to sell the product. Vitality Air's biggest challenge is meeting market demand because each bottle of clean air is hand-sealed.

According to VNE