Fly By Jing Sichuan Chili Crisp

Key numbers

The product

Fly By Jing's flagship Sichuan Chili Crisp (~$12-15 a jar) is an all-natural, additive-free chili oil made in Chengdu from 18 ingredients: cold-pressed rapeseed oil, fermented black beans, aged chili oil and tribute peppers. Unlike vinegary American hot sauces or mass-market Chinese chili oils, it is textured, umami-rich and marketed as a 'not traditional but personal' condiment for everything from pizza to ice cream. The line grew to ~10 products including sauces, spices and noodle kits. It is sold direct-to-consumer, on Amazon, and through 12,000+ retail doors; ingredients are still sourced and produced in Chengdu, preserving authenticity that competitors' white-label products lack.

How they did it

Gao worked in tech and brand management (P&G, BlackBerry) before moving to Chengdu, training under a master chef and opening the Baoism restaurant in Shanghai. After a 2018 Expo West trip revealed a gap for premium Asian condiments, she ran a Kickstarter that became the platform's most-funded craft food project at the time, then launched DTC in February 2019. Early on it took six months to convince a Chengdu factory to keep her recipe uncut. In April 2020 a New York Times chili crisp feature transformed the business: one week of sales matched the prior full year, with 1,000% annual growth. Backed by a $12M Series B in 2023 (Prelude Growth Partners), Fly By Jing became the top US chili crisp brand in 2024.

Why it worked

• Premium authenticity positioning: real Chengdu sourcing and no-additive recipe in a market of watered-down imitations
• Kickstarter + Instagram built trendsetter early adopters who seeded word-of-mouth nationwide
• Timed breakout: the 2020 NYT feature and pandemic home-cooking boom multiplied sales 10x in one year
• Ruthless channel expansion from DTC into Amazon and 12,000+ doors (Target, Costco, Whole Foods, Walmart)