Who is the ‘crazy American’ behind Svalbardi’s HK$950 iceberg water in Hong Kong?
Former Wall Street market analyst claims his product is environmentally friendly and ‘a celebration, not just hydration’, but green groups disagree
The man behind the HK$950 bottles of Arctic glacier water stripped from a Hong Kong supermarket’s shelves has defended the product and says he hopes to sell 100,000 bottles a year.
Last week, Svalbardi received a frosty reception with internet users slamming it as “totally environmentally unfriendly” and “stupid” when its products went on sale in Great Food Hall in Pacific Place, prompting the supermarket to take the item off shelves.
It was about 19 times more expensive than a similarly sized S Pellegrino, the next most costly bottled water sold at the supermarket.
HK$950 bottled water made from polar glaciers, pulled from Hong Kong shelves
But the brand’s Norwegian-American founder Jamal Qureshi, a former Wall Street market analyst, insisted the products were environmentally friendly.
He has experienced backlash before, including from fellow residents of Svalbard, a remote Norwegian archipelago home to fewer than 3,000 people between Norway and the North Pole.
“To be honest, some of the locals at first were like: who’s this crazy American guy coming up here wanting to sell icebergs? People started to understand it as time went on,” he told the Post from Svalbard, where he now lives.
“Now some of the local people are some of our best customers.”
