Kiwi oxygen start-ups see opportunity in the air
Two Auckland-based start-ups have taken a deep breath and started selling recreational oxygen.
Despite there being no medical evidence that huffing a high concentration of oxygen has any benefits, the global market is expected to be worth $2 billion by 2023.
Entrepreneur Leslie Crawford first encountered at a Utah resort.
‘‘They would take a few breaths of it then hoon on down the mountain ... and that’s when we discovered 95 per cent recreational oxygen.
‘‘We tried it ourselves, particularly when we were skiing, and the energy boost that you get is amazing.’’
Soon after, its the use by skiers mother-of-five bought the rights to sell Oxygen Plus in New Zealand and Australia under the name Oxygen Please and sold her first bottle in January 2017.
Competitors Boost Oxygen came on to the New Zealand market some months later, selling essentially the same product.
But Kyle Perrin, a respiratory physician at Wellington hospital, said the bottles would at best provide a temporary effect.
As a comparison, bottled water was no healthier than what came out of the tap, but consumers stll bought it.
New Zealand already has a similar industry to bottled oxygen. Breathe Ezy is the brainchild of Christchurch businessman Phillip Duval, who made headlines in 2016 after capturing and bottling hit or a placebo pure New Zealand air in the South Island and shipping it to smogriddled Beijing.
Crawford said she wants her oxygen to be viewed as the next bottled water.
‘‘The way I see it is, if people are happy to drink energy drinks, eat protein bars, with all those insane ingredients, why wouldn’t you try an all-natural boost with no caffeine, no sugar and no crash.’’