Chopsticks Made in America

Many manufactured goods sold in the United States are made in China.  But one small company in the American state of Georgia is making traditional Chinese chopsticks (筷子), and sending them to China.

Chopsticks are sticks used in many Asian countries to eat food (it’s about one-third of the world’s population). They are mainly made out of wood, but can be made of bamboo or plastic. Most of the world’s chopsticks are made in China. Several hundred Chinese manufacturers produce about sixty three billion pairs of chopsticks a year. Unfortunately, they are running out of wood. One small American company, Georgia Chopsticks recognized this demand. It started producing chopsticks late last year, and makes two million pairs each day.

In central Georgia, sweetgum and poplar trees grow in large numbers. And these trees can make good chopsticks. This is because the wood is not firm and has a nice color. Unlike many Asian chopsticks, these Georgia-made chopsticks do not need to be lightened with chemicals and bleach.

Korean-American Jae Lee, the president of Georgia Chopsticks, says that the world market for chopsticks is huge. “We’ll have seven machines coming in, so it’ll increase to like four million per day. End of this year, we will produce ten million per day.” 

Every chopstick his company makes goes to Asia, where they are sold to stores in China, Korea, and Japan. Right now, Georgia Chopsticks cannot keep up with demand for its product.

It costs Jae Lee less than one cent to make a pair of chopsticks. But he says he is not making any money yet. To earn a profit, he needs to produce more than four million chopsticks a day. He says he hopes to do this in the next month or two.

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