“I thought I could make a profit.”
Jae Lee, President of Georgia Chopsticks
These days everything is made in China, right? From flip flops to furniture and appliances to American flags. Everything, that is, except chopsticks. In a happy bit of irony, those are made by a company in Americus, Georgia (population 16,304) and shipped to China.
China and its 1.3 billion people go through a ton of chopsticks, literally. They typically toss their chopsticks after each use, and the country doesn’t have enough wood keep its citizens supplied. Americus does. In fact, the poplar and sweet gum trees ideal for making chopsticks grow like weeds around Americus, which also has a bumper crop of willing workers. With local unemployment hovering around 12 percent, Georgia Chopsticks is having no problem filling its 150 spots. The company opened only last year and is cranking out 2 million chopsticks a day. At full capacity, that number should shoot up to 10 million a day. And the company is expanding its shipping to an inland port town to make exporting easier.
You know what they say about Chinese takeout. An hour later and you’re hungry for more. With the Chinese appetite for chopsticks, that’s money in the bank for Americus.
Read the Article ® Americus’ cool coup: Chopsticks for China
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