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# Chopsticks and iPhones
- URL: https://www.kevinmeyer.com/chopsticks-and-iphones/
- Published: 2011-08-13T18:51:38.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-06T21:34:13.000Z
- Author: Kevin Meyer
- Tags: Outsourcing Lemmings, #Migrated-1752356847400, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-07-12 14:48

Cheap, low margin, low tech. Made in America, exported to China. It can be done, even with a product that has comparatively zero demand in America.

*Enter Georgia Chopsticks. Jae Lee, a former scrap-metal exporter, saw an opportunity and began turning out chopsticks for the Chinese market late last year. He and his co-owner, David Hughes, make their chopsticks from poplar and sweet-gum trees, which have the requisite flexibility and toughness, and are abundant throughout Georgia.*

*In May Georgia Chopsticks moved to larger premises in Americus, a location that offered room to grow, inexpensive facilities and a willing workforce. Sumter County, of which Americus is the seat, has an unemployment rate of more than 12%. Georgia Chopsticks now employs 81 people turning out 2m chopsticks a day. By year’s end Mr Lee and Mr Hughes hope to increase their workforce to 150, and dream of building a “manufacturing incubator” to help foreign firms take advantage of Georgia’s workforce and raw materials.*

If it can be done with chopsticks, why not with iPhones? What if Apple's innovation genius was applied to manufacturing and the supply chain, not just product design?

What if?