Jing Gao Puts Sichuan Chili Crisp Back on Costco Shelves This Summer

For years, Jing Gao’s chili crisp lived in the kind of pantry people hunted for: specialty aisles, online carts, the friend who always brought a jar to dinner. This summer she is stocking a different shelf.

Fly By Jing, the Los Angeles company Gao founded after a record-setting 2018 Kickstarter, has put Original Sichuan Chili Crisp back into Costco warehouses across Los Angeles, Orange County, and Hawaii. Shoppers can buy a two-pack of six-ounce jars for $14.99. Starting August 3, the same markets are scheduled to get eight-packs of Chili Crisp Noodles at the same price. Availability still varies by warehouse, so it is worth checking the club nearest you before you plan a haul around it.

Gao was born in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, and grew up moving between cities before returning to China as an adult. She trained with Chengdu chef Yu Bo, opened Baoism, a modern Chinese fast-casual restaurant in Shanghai, and ran traveling supper clubs under the name that became her brand. Fly restaurants, in Chengdu slang, are the tiny rooms so good they attract people like flies. Jing is the birth name she reclaimed after years of answering to Jenny.

The Kickstarter for Sichuan Chili Crisp raised about $120,000 from nearly 1,700 backers and was widely described at the time as the highest-funded craft food project on the platform. The jar did not invent chili crisp. China has long made chile oils and crunchy chile condiments, and Guizhou’s Lao Gan Ma helped turn one style into a mass-market staple. Gao’s bet was different: a premium, all-natural Sichuan formula, made in Chengdu, sold as a modern American pantry staple without flattening the flavor for timid shelves.

Her 2023 cookbook, *The Book of Sichuan Chili Crisp*, later won a 2024 James Beard Media Award for Visuals, with photography by Yudi Echevarria. By 2025, coverage such as China Daily put Fly By Jing in more than 12,000 U.S. retail doors, including Target, Walmart, Whole Foods, and Costco, and reported the brand as the country’s top chili crisp seller for 2024.

The Costco two-pack is the Original: fermented soybean, fried aromatics, chile, and the savory crunch people already know from smaller grocery doors. Company materials describe it as vegan and Non-GMO Project Verified. The noodle multipack is the weeknight companion, sun-dried knife-cut noodles with a chili crisp sauce meant to cook in about six minutes.

That warehouse framing matters because Costco is where a lot of households first try a product they have only seen online. Gao has said Costco helps introduce Asian pantry goods to new kitchens, and this rollout puts both the hero jar and a ready bowl in front of those carts. In April, the brand also launched Mild Crunchy Garlic, its first non-spicy chili crisp, at Whole Foods nationwide, another signal that the company is widening the table beyond heat alone.

Chili crisp is no longer a niche jar on a food blog. The interesting part of Gao’s summer is where the jar is standing. A founder who started with suitcase pop-ups and a Kickstarter batch is now arguing for Sichuan flavor in the same stores that sell paper towels by the pallet.

If you already keep a Fly By Jing jar by the stove, the Costco pack is simply a better way to restock in the markets that carry it. If you have never bought one, the warehouse aisle is a low-drama first try: two jars, a clear price, and, from August 3, noodles for the nights when dinner has to happen fast. Either way, the story is the same. Sichuan’s most visible American ambassador is meeting people where they already shop.