True Patriots Are Cashing In on the ApocalypseNEWS | 09 January 2026Today, the US government advises every citizen to build a disaster kit and concoct plans for an array of cataclysms. According to a 2023 survey from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 51 percent of Americans are in some way “prepared for a disaster.” This helps explain why the prepping industry’s market cap is forecast to be nearly $300 billion by the end of the decade. Two of the firms competing for market share have nearly identical names and offer the same basic slate of products: power generators, dehydrated food, and water filtration. There’s Stapleton’s employer, 4Patriots, and its rival, My Patriot Supply. While exact revenue figures are difficult to pin down, officials at My Patriot Supply tell me that, before the pandemic, they rented part of a 45,000-square-foot space; today, the company built and fully utilizes a 428,000-square-foot warehouse not far from Stapleton’s home.
These two firms are aggressively jockeying to be the industry’s true patriot prepping company, with one official from My Patriot Supply claiming that 4Patriots is their “archnemesis.” My Patriot Supply is particularly bellicose, deeming the other company and its competitors “fake patriots”in a video. Meanwhile, both firms have notched their share of consumer complaints with government and business watchdogs over the years. 4Patriots customers have alleged that the company produces faulty water filters, defective generators, and dubious food. One person said their order was rife with roaches, while another claimed the company's Aztec Chili with Mango made them “can’t leave the bathroom sick” for a week. (According to the Better Business Bureau website, someone associated with 4Patriots replied to this alleged complaint a day later, adding, "I'm so sorry that you had many issues after consuming the survival food kits.”) In 2016, the company voluntarily recalled a couple thousand generators due to an unforeseen fire hazard, and consumer complaints allege their generators continue to suffer from potentially dangerous electrical defects. (After putting 4Patriots’ 1,800-watt solar generator through lab testing, Consumer Reports rated it 46 out of 100.) Certainly, recalls and bad reviews are part and parcel of many businesses today, though an explicit part of the pitch from 4Patriots and its competitors is the rock-hard reliability of their goods when disaster strikes.
In a comment to WIRED, a 4Patriots official said the company shipped over 5 million products to consumers over the past three years and that it places “product quality and customer safety above all else.” He declined to detail the company’s return or refund rates, asserting that to equate those numbers with “product failure or customer dissatisfaction would be inaccurate.”Author: Jasper Craven. Source
