MayDay

First Aid Store is proud to offer MayDay industries Gear - As the largest distributor of Mayday, we are the main suppliers of Earthquake Kits, First Aid Kits and Emergency Gear of all types. Mayday's flagship products are the food and water rations that they manufacture. These items have a five-year shelf life and are U.S. Coast Guard approved. In addition they stock a complete line of disaster related supplies such as; Sanitation, First Aid, Shelter, Communication, Lighting, Search & Rescue, Triage, Water, and more. Mayday offers disaster preparedness kits that range from 1 to 1000 persons. They can and will custom design any kit to fit their customer’s needs. This can include custom silkscreen on any of the kits!

John Tepel, and A Short History of Mayday Industries

The Past

I have been in sales and marketing most of my life. I was looking for a new business to get into when someone told me I should sell earthquakes kits. I did a 10,000 piece flyer drop and got 1 order. That person one person who bought told me I should go to her preschool because they have to pack an earthquake kit every year for her child. I went to the preschool and they bought and so did the next 3000 schools. I had one product for the first year - Kit for Kids. I then expanded my product line with other preparedness related products and hired 12 sales reps from San Diego to Anchorage to go out and call on schools in their area. Over the next 5 years I estimate Earthquake Management ( my start up retail company) sold about 300,000 kits. After 5 years of success I saw a decline in sales and realized that at a certain point I would have tap out the market except for the 5 year re-order point so I had the choice of get out of the business or become a major supplier to the industry. When the sales reps I hired for Earthquake Management would quit I would not replace them as I knew as a wholesaler I could not compete against my customers. Mayday Industries was born.

Mayday Industries ...

At first I was a wholesale reseller of kits and other emergency related products to a number of different businesses - this business model did not exist. I still felt I needed to make my mark so I decided to manufacture the drinking water. I purchased a used machine which was an enormous mistake as the water pouches I produced were defective. It took years to regain buyer confidence in Mayday water.I purchased a new machine - this machine has produced over 20 million pouches. But compared to the food the water was a walk in the park.

When I requested information from the US Coast Guard on the food rations I expected to receive step by step directions on how to manufacture the rations. Wrong. They send you information on what the ration needs to contain (the amount of protein, carbohydrates, moisture etc) it is up to the individual to make a bar to match. This took 3 years of trial and error - I never gave up even though at some points it seemed useless. I decided to add 100% of the daily vitamin allowance to the food bar to give us advantage over the other 3 food bar companies. We still use this as a selling point today.

The food and water are the cornerstone of Mayday Industries it's what sets us apart.

We are one of 5 companies in the world that has a license from Homeland Security to manufacture the 5 year shelf life food and water.

The Present

Today Mayday has hundreds of distributors. Our specialty is drop shipping orders to their customers so there is no need for anyone to stock our products. We have many on line resellers, some home based, some large.

We have distributors around the world (Chile, Peru, Russia, Central America, Columbia, The Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand and Canada) that sell a variety of our products.

Mayday Industries is a manufacturer and wholesaler that specializes in disaster preparedness supplies. Established in 1995, we have seen this industry change from west coast earthquake preparedness to a spotlight on national preparedness brought on by September 11 and the Iraq War. Mayday Industries has set itself apart from the crowd.