It's a Beverage? It's a Snack? No! It's Packaged Air

Bottled air isn't just for scuba divers anymore. It's being sold hundreds of miles from the ocean, in Missouri as a health product, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Springfield, Mo.-based Big Ox, the company that introduced the flavored product to the U.S., said each can contains 93 percent oxygen, and can relieve stress, boost energy and can even cure hangovers, the newspaper reported. Flavors available are mountain mint and tropical breeze. The cans contain 30 inhalations and sell for $10 to $15.

"Most people are like 'What is this?'" Joe McNamara, manager of an Amoco station in Creve Coeur, Miss. told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Packaged oxygen called O2 Supli has already been introduced in the Japanese c-store market and is being tested in 7-Elevens across that country, CSNews reported in May. There, peppermint and grapefruit flavors are available.

Then, it was debatable whether such a product would be introduced in the U.S. But Big Ox has found investors for its product, and currently stocks the product in gas stations, gyms and health food stores in the Midwest, the report stated.

Big Ox co-founder David McKeown, a former car salesman, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the company has big plans for the product. They hope to distribute the product beyond the Midwest, and are launching two new flavors -- Citrus and Original.

Gas stations are the company's biggest client, although some Quik Trips that tested the product will not be restocking the shelves with it, the newspaper reported.

The founders thought of the product while at an oxygen bar in Las Vegas. McKeown said they asked themselves, "Why can't you have oxygen in some other device you can use at your leisure?"
X
This ad will auto-close in 10 seconds