Lai See | Chicken feet give Savannah a big foot in the shipping door

Who would have thought that chicken feet could bring a US port to life? But that is indeed what they have done for the port of Savannah, Georgia. Prior to 2002, Savannah was a quiet sleepy port. Then two things happened. First, the west coast dock strike resulted in a lot of cargo being redirected through Savannah, much of which it held on to afterwards. Second, Hong Kong businesspeople started showing an interest in buying the chicken feet that hitherto had been thrown away at local processing plants, Bloomberg reports.

Now the port ships out some 360 refrigerated containers a week of chicken feet to Hong Kong and mainland China, helping to make it the US' fastest-growing port. A higher proportion of goods is exported out of Savannah than at other US ports, which makes it more attractive to shipping lines than a port that just receives imports.

Container traffic at Savannah has doubled over the past decade with an eighth of all US exports by weight going through the port, trailing only Los Angeles. China's consumption of US-produced chicken feet has quadrupled in recent years.

While browsing 's online site yesterday afternoon our eyes alighted on an item in its Breaking News panel bang in the middle of its front page. Breaking News implies something of importance that should attract our attention: a big fire, major accident, plane crash or the like. But no, it has to be said this item didn't rise to those giddy heights. The headline read: "Hong Kong stocks end 0.26 per cent lower." Hardly something to set the heart racing but all too typical of the world today, which values the urgency and immediacy of reporting change for the sake of change, rather than because it is something of real interest.