“Richard Lee and Claire Guyer are taking a short break from selling Chinese dumplings, even though their customers are clamoring for more. They’re not being bad businesspeople. They’ve just had a bit of bad luck, thanks to a wayward dumpling machine. In February, Lee and Guyer started Little Brother Chinese Food, a small business that sells bags of frozen, hand-folded jiaozi, or dumplings, based on family recipes Lee learned from his grandmother and aunt. Their food proved to be much more popular than they expected, and they routinely made 3,000 dumplings a week. ‘We would think, ‘OK, we finally folded enough to last us for a week,’ and then they would sell out in two days,’ Guyer said. ‘The folding is definitely the longest time commitment when you’re making dumplings.'”

“They couldn’t keep up, but they didn’t feel ready to bring on more staff either. So they found a company in China that would make them a custom dumpling machine to fill and fold their dumplings. It would also allow them to make their own dough for wrappers. ‘We took pictures of our dumplings and gave them specific weights and all the specifications, and they made a dumpling die (a manufacturing tool used to form materials into specific shapes) that’s suited for our dumplings,’ Lee said. He asked the company to ship the dumpling machine to Portland, Maine. Then the bill of lading arrived in an email. What happened next is familiar to many residents of our fair city: The company sent the machine to the wrong Portland. ‘We saw that it was headed for Tacoma, Washington, and then Portland, Oregon.’ Lee said. ‘We called them and they said, ‘It’s already in the water. We can’t do anything about it now.” Guyer, laughing, recalled the company’s suggestion: ‘Can’t you just go to Oregon and pick it up?'” – Portland Press Herald.