KINZERS, Pa.—Two stainless steel fire pits look nearly identical. The Solo Stove sells for about $250 and is made mostly in China. Its Amish rival costs $500 and just got a big leg up from President Trump.
The new U.S. tariffs will drive up costs for the maker of Solo Stove and could push the already-struggling market leader into bankruptcy. The Texas-based company, which propelled its sales with heavy advertising during the pandemic, is now slashing marketing and revisiting its prices.
Breeo, a small manufacturer in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, has seized the opening: In recent weeks, the company has run a national television commercial touting its “tariff proof fire pits.” The ad shows a welder in a stars-and-stripes helmet working to an electric-guitar soundtrack. “Built to last. Made in America,” the ad says.
Breeo’s factory is a two-story stucco building the size of two basketball courts, surrounded largely by farmland. Inside, the space is packed with welding and metal-shaping machinery. Most of its workers come from the local Amish community. Amos Stoltzfus, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer, previously worked nearby in his father’s business, which manufactures stoves and custom metal goods.
Breeo’s executives say the company in 2014 was first to the U.S. market with a smokeless fire pit in the shape of a double-walled steel cylinder. But Solo Stove burned past Breeo with a version that was lighter, cheaper and made in China.
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