Jing Gao | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1987or1988(age 37–38) [1] |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Known for | Fly By Jing |
Jing Gao is a Chinese-American entrepreneur. She founded the chili crisp brand Fly By Jing.
Gao was born in Chengdu, China, raised in Europe, and attended school in Canada. [2] [3] [4] Her father was a professor. [5] While growing up in Europe, she used the name Jenny rather than Jing in an attempt to fit in, returning to using Jing around 2021. [4] [6]
After graduating from college, Gao worked as a brand manager for Procter & Gamble. [7] She worked for BlackBerry. [8] She moved back to Sichuan Province in her early twenties and lived there for 10 years while working for a tech company. [2] [4] [5] While living in China she became interested in Chinese food culture, eventually quitting her job to train in restaurants. [2] [4] [9] She opened a restaurant, Baoism, in 2014 and in 2016 hosted a pop-up supper club branded as Fly By Jing. [2] [9] [5] She created a blog, Jing Theory, and wrote about food for other publications. [10] [5] She developed a line of products under the brand name Fly By Jing, a reference to China's small street stalls that are so popular they are said to attract people like flies, for the Chinese market. [4]
After a Kickstarter campaign in 2018 with a goal of $35,000 raised $120,000, Gao relocated to the US in 2019 to start Fly By Jing as a direct-to-consumer company marketing chili crisp. [2] [11] [10] [12] [4] In 2020 the pandemic created an increased interest in homecooking, and a feature article about chili crisp in the New York Times that mentioned Fly By Jing increased sales of the product. [11]
In 2023 trade publication Nosh said Gao's products had "touched off the chili crisp craze that launched a million TikTok recipes during the pandemic". [13]
Her first cookbook, The Book of Sichuan Chili Crisp, was published in 2023 by Ten Speed Press. [2] The book's photographer, Yudi Echevarria, won a James Beard Award for her work on the book. [14] [15]