Sandals and flip flops made in Buford, Georgia since 1984
✅ Made in USA
Where Okabashi products are made
Buford, Georgia
Okabashi runs a 100,000 square foot plant in Buford with roughly 200 employees and capacity the company puts at up to 10,000 pairs a day.
A closed-loop material
The sandals are molded from a proprietary bio-based compound the company says is about 45 percent soy by weight and 100 percent recyclable. Scrap and returned pairs are reground into new product.
Built on reflexology
The original designs were shaped around reflexology principles — a contoured arch, a sculpted heel cup and massage beads underfoot — and the company still builds to that footbed today.
Okabashi is one of the cleanest Made in USA cases in footwear. The company states its sandals are 100% made in America and handcrafted in Buford, Georgia, and — unusually — it also claims domestic sourcing for the raw material, describing its bio-based compound as sourced in the USA. One scope note: the apparel and accessories items it sells alongside the shoes carry no origin statement, so the Made in USA claim should be read as covering the footwear. A newer sibling brand, Oka Recovery, operates under its own name and its own claims.
The story
Okabashi Brands has operated a shoe company in the small town of Buford, Georgia since 1984. The name draws on a Japanese idea of wellness, and the earliest designs were built on reflexology — the sandals were meant to do something for the foot, not just cover it.
Buford was a deliberate place to build shoes. The town was once known as the Leather City, and a large shoe factory ran there until 1941 before reopening for wartime work; by 1943 it had rebuilt 1.5 million pairs with 700 employees turning out 6,000 pairs a day. Okabashi arrived four decades after that campus closed.
The company has since made more than 35 million pairs in Georgia and is run by a female leadership team. It leans hard on a closed-loop model: worn pairs can be mailed back for recycling in exchange for a discount, scrap is reground, and Okabashi states its shoes travel 93 percent less than the average imported shoe.
The line has grown well past flip flops into slides, clogs, mary janes and rain boots, all molded on the same Buford floor and all backed by a two-year guarantee.
Why they matter
American footwear manufacturing is close to extinct. By Okabashi’s own accounting it sits in the last one percent of shoe production that still happens in the United States, and that number is not an accident — footwear was among the first categories to leave, because labor is a large share of the cost and the tooling travels easily.
What makes Okabashi worth paying attention to is that it did not survive by going upmarket. These are inexpensive, everyday sandals sold at prices that compete directly with imports. The company got there through material science and automation rather than by charging a premium for the flag, which is the harder and more repeatable path.
The recycling loop matters for the same reason. A sandal that can be ground up and remolded into another sandal, in the same building, is a genuinely circular product — and it only works because the factory is close enough to the customer for the return trip to make sense. Buying Okabashi keeps a rare domestic shoe plant running and proves the category can still be made here at a normal price.
Featured products
Browse Okabashi sandals, flip flops and slides available now in the Buy American store.
Frequently asked questions
Where are Okabashi sandals made?
At the company’s own 100,000 square foot factory in Buford, Georgia, about 45 minutes from Atlanta. Okabashi states it has made more than 35 million pairs there since opening in 1984.
Are Okabashi shoes really made in the USA?
Yes. The company states its footwear is 100% made in America and handcrafted in Georgia, and it also says the proprietary bio-based material is sourced in the USA. The apparel and accessories it sells carry no origin statement.
What are Okabashi shoes made of?
A proprietary bio-based compound that the company describes as roughly 45 percent soy by weight, vegan, and 100 percent recyclable. Worn pairs can be mailed back to the factory to be reground into new shoes.
What is Okabashi best known for?
The Maui women’s flip flop, which the company calls its best-selling women’s shoe, along with the Surf men’s flip flop and the Torino. All are built on the reflexology-inspired footbed the brand started with in 1984.