Tao Huabi is known as China’s “hottest woman”. Born in the poverty-stricken village Guizhou in 1947, Tao Huabi never learnt how to read and write but she is the woman behind Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chilli Crisp- a hot sauce of chopped chillies- iconic in China and also increasingly appearing in cupboards and fridges in the rest of the world.
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Tao Huabi is featured on the jar of the sauce as the combination of peanuts, soya beans, MSG, and oil infused with the chilli is enjoyed by many. Forbes China estimates Tao Huabi’s fortune at $1.05 billion.
Quite a lot for a woman who worked at a construction site and set up a stall to sell vegetables after her husband died. In 1989, Tao Huabi opened a restaurant called “Shi Hui Restaurant” and mainly made food involving chili sauce.
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When a new highway brought truck drivers to the restaurant, she gave them free jars of the sauce and then the word spread. In 1996, she set a factory up in a house and a year later Lao Gan Ma Special Flavour Foodstuffs Company was born.
The product has been so popular that in 2016, Bloomberg said that Lao Gan Ma helped the historically poor Guizhou achieve 10.5% growth. This was the second fastest of every Chinese province in that year and far ahead of the national rate of 6.7%.
Now, the company produces 1.3 million bottles daily, its website said.
