“Prepping” as it is commonly known, is a community of people who prepare for various kinds of systemic meltdown, whether it be social, financial, planetary (asteroid strike), natural disaster, or EMP event. The idea has gained so much interest it’s nearly an industry in itself, with trade shows attracting vendors and middle class consumers with discretionary income to spend on prepping products such as seed banks, tools, generators, weapons, and other survival devices. Most notably though, they say attendees are most concerned with learning and knowledge.
FORTUNE — More and more Americans are spending money to get ready for an uncertain future — gathering food, water, tools, and skills to help them weather anything from a hurricane to a pandemic. Contrary to images of deluded or gun-obsessed “lone wolves,” many preppers are average consumers reacting to concrete worries, and their way of thinking is spreading, fueling an emerging lifestyle trend. That lifestyle is generating demand for a broad spectrum of products offering survival — or even comfort — when large-scale systems go down.
An array of preparedness expos and conferences have cropped up around the country to serve this emerging and fast-changing market. To get a closer look, I visited Life Changes, Be Ready!, or LCBR, a new expo that held its second event on the weekend of November 2nd and 3rd, in Lakeland, Fla. LCBR gave an immediate sense of one big way that the preparedness crowd isn’t marginal at all — economically. The show floor was packed with a dizzying array of small businesses and products that defied stereotypical “prepper” classification — not just ammunition and crossbows and camping gear, but also seed banks, beehives, financial planning, and acupressure.
According to many of the entrepreneurs on the floor, business is trending upwards. John Egger of Self Reliance Strategies has been producing and selling prepackaged seed banks for nearly four years and sees his market expanding. “It’s definitely picking up. It’s not just country people anymore. We really cater to a suburban market … We call it suburban homesteading.” You can see this broadening of the market in the range of price points, from the $5,600 portable solar charging stations flogged by Alternative Energy, Inc., to the $649 “Stomp Supreme” field medic kit offered by Doom and Bloom, LLC. (“This is the one recommended for people expecting civil unrest.”) Clearly, LCBR’s vendors saw a crowd ready to drop major cash today to assuage their worries about tomorrow.
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The diversity and type of products on offer was also remarkable. Egger’s seeds, for example, were prominently labelled “Organic” and “Non-GMO” — and so were all the other seeds on sale at the show. Those are distinctions you might not think were important to the same crowd in the market for a crossbow, but according to Egger, “you don’t have to explain to people anymore” why eating organic matters. That was just one element of the unique mix of gritty survivalism, back-to-the land self-sufficiency, and outright hippie dream-science on display at LCBR. There were earthworm farms and beehives for sale, and two different companies dealing in essential oils. In a back corner, Mike Mah, or “No Stress Mike,” offered $30 pain reduction sessions using his “Hoy Chi” energy healing techniques. Mah’s flyers proudly advertised that he attended every Tea Party event he could, and he manipulated the spines of dozens of willing customers with a pistol tucked discreetly in his waistband.
There are still uncertainties in the preparedness market, some driven by ideology, according to Charlie Hogwood of Personal Readiness Education Programs. “All last year it was up and up and up. But after the [presidential] election, it flattened out.” Hogwood thinks that some in the market were overwrought over doomsday scenarios surrounding the reelection of Barack Obama. “Last year, I heard 100 different conspiracy theories” about what a second Obama presidency might mean. But when the election wasn’t followed by martial law and FEMA camps, both the rhetoric and the market cooled off a bit. “I rarely hear the crazy theories now. Now everyone’s worried mainly about the collapse of the dollar,” says Hogwood, referring to widespread prepper fears of hyperinflation triggered by the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing.
Being prepared is an underlying mantra of both finance and I.T. Regulatory rules even require financial institutions to have policies and systems known as ‘disaster recovery’ and ‘continuity’ in the event of disaster. The reason for this is obvious, if New York was swamped by a Tsunami, markets should remain open as not to be impacted by the disaster. Backup systems should be able to restore systems to their normal operation after the disaster subsides. Looking at prepping from this perspective, it doesn’t seem unusual.
“It’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.”
Anyone who has been through a natural disaster, power outage, or other mild disruption of service, can appreciate the value in having a backup system in place. Prepping can take different forms depending on the goal and perceived risk. We can break it down into several categories:
- Financial – Planning your portfolio and available assets in the event of severe market disruption
- Technical – Tools such as computers, automobiles, and other tools you may need in the event of a catastrophe
- Survival – Food, physical shelter & security, power
Prepping Resources
Nitro-Pak Preparedness Center – Nitro-Pak is the world leader in emergency preparedness products with over 25 years of experience!
Amazon – carries many prepping supplies including computer gear, and has great shipping discounts.
GIH Member Shop – Checkout some great products selected by GIH team for extreme situations.
Further Reading
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/11/life-changes-be-ready/
