American entrepreneur makes disposable chopsticks for China

8:12 AM, Aug 4, 2011   |    comments
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He's making chopsticks and selling them to China at the rate of four million a day.

Jay Lee is from Korea and moved to the U.S. more than 20 years ago. He tried a few businesses and then saw his chance.

The Chinese use a staggering 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks a year, and they're running out of wood.
Turns out Georgia's Poplar trees are perfect. They're soft, strong and grow like weeds.

Now Lee's factory is running nonstop, six days a week.
But when he started out, he didn't find a lot of support.
He borrowed from family, found a local partner, invested a million dollars in a plant in the small town of Americus, then hired almost 100 people.

(KUSA-TV © 2011 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)