At a factory in southern China, hundreds of assembly-line workers wearing blue caps churn out kitchenware and grilling accessories for global retailers including Walmart Inc. The vast shop floor — almost the size of six soccer fields — is a hive of activity as everything from grill tongs to food storage containers are assembled and packaged. In the break area for office workers next door there’s a Silicon Valley vibe: Designers and engineers in black polo shirts play foosball and table tennis, while a barista serves cappuccinos.
It’s one of four factories in China run by Velong Enterprises, a working partnership that began in 2005 when American Jacob Rothman combined his Shanghai-based trading company with a small factory in southern Guangdong province owned by Iven Chen. Together they’ve built an operation that designs, develops, manufactures and markets products worldwide. Rothman, 52, jokes that he and Chen, 47, are like a married couple — only better, as they never argue. “I can’t say that about my own marriage,” he says.
