Fly by Jing is launching chili crisp ketchup

Fast Company

2 days ago

Fly by Jing, the beloved CPG brand that's helped make high-quality chili crisp a staple in many American households, announced today that it's fusing its iconic sauce with an unexpected condiment: ketchup.
The new product, called Chili Crisp Ketchup, launches today in a limited run online, retailing for $15 a bottle. It was made in collaboration with Frankie Gaw, a creator and author known for remixing Asian cuisine with classic American products. According to a press release, Chili Crisp Ketchup combines Fly by Jing's bestselling Original Sichuan Chili Crisp with a ketchup base 'to create a spicy, savory, and smooth blend that's at once novel and nostalgic.'
For Fly by Jing founder Jing Gao, the brand's move to fuse its core product with a classically American condiment is an evolution of its overarching goal to help Western consumers 'experiment more wildly' with traditionally Chinese flavors and integrate them into their existing routine.
But the Chili Crisp Ketchup also serves a secondary purpose: helping Fly by Jing diversify its supply chain in the wake of President Trump's sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports.
Fly by Jing spices up ketchup
Gao's concept for Fly by Jing first took shape in 2018, when she noticed that the market for chili crisp was rapidly expanding in Western markets. She saw an opportunity to introduce a broader customer base to the iconic flavors of her hometown, Chengdu, China, and to create her own chili crisp with higher quality ingredients than other competitors on the market. The first step was spending several years just courting Sichuan suppliers and merchants to source the chili crisp's 18 premium ingredients.
Since its launch in 2019, Fly by Jing has transformed from a crowd-funded direct-to-consumer (DTC) project to a staple on grocery store shelves, now offering its products in 11,000 stores nationwide including major retailers like Target, Safeway, and Walmart. The company has also debuted additional products like a spicy vinaigrette, a line of instant noodles, and an ultra-hot oil that's appeared on the YouTube show Hot Ones.
The concept for a ketchup-slash-chili-crisp actually came from a TikTok video made by Gaw, who used chili crisp to create his own custom ketchup blend. Gaw and Gao connected over the concept, which Gao saw as a natural evolution of her brand's central thesis.
'From day one, we've really tried to decrease the barriers for people to understand Sichuan flavors,' Gao says. She specifically recalls launching the brand's original flavor through collaborations with ice cream shops to show how unexpectedly delicious the pairing could be. 'Showing these flavors truly are good on everything, I think it was really helpful for Western audiences who hadn't experienced this before,' she adds.
A satisfying squeeze bottle
Fly by Jing's Chili Crisp Ketchup comes in the brand's first-ever squeeze bottle, which Gao's team has actually been conceptualizing for several years.
The main challenge with the proposition was making the squeeze format work with the chunky, gritty textures of a good chili crisp. In this case, Gao says, they were able to solve that problem by sifting out some of the larger components and relying more on the deep flavors of the oil itself, which is then balanced with the sweet tanginess of the ketchup.
For his part of the collaboration, Gaw assisted in the tasting process and also designed the squeeze bottle's label. The package is a major visual departure from Fly by Jing's other branding, swapping its ' dopamine design ' neon colors for a retro Americana look (and a swaggy image of Gaw's own grandma, clad in a flaming cowboy hat).
As of right now, Chili Crisp Ketchup is a limited edition product. Gao plans to test consumer interest through an initial DTC launch, which will help determine whether the product is a good candidate to roll out in retail.
Weathering Trump's tariff headwinds
In the meantime, Fly by Jing is also testing several other squeeze bottle sauces with production components based in the U.S. and other countries as part of a broader supply chain diversification effort.
That's because some of the important ingredients across its portfolio of product offerings—the premium spices and aromatics that are specially sourced from Sichuan, China— are subject to the Trump administration's tariffs on China. Currently, those tariffs equal a 55% tax on imported ingredients, though they could jump up to rates as high as 145% if the Trump administration doesn't relent on its plan to boost them in the next three months.