The story of "Chili Sister" from Changchun returning home to start a business

Yang Xiaowei's hometown is located in Qingshankou Township, Nong'an County, Changchun City, Jilin Province, where the black soil nurtures premium domestic chili varieties, but before she returned home from Singapore to start a business, the chilies from her hometown were sold at most as far as Heilongjiang. Since founding a melon and vegetable planting cooperative at her doorstep in 2007, she has led the local folks in developing contract farming, and today the chilies from her hometown are not only sold to 35 cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but have also entered the South Korean market for 6 consecutive years with an average annual export volume of 100 tons.

Over the past 9 years, driven by Yang Xiaowei, 280 farming households in 7 surrounding townships have begun to prosper through agricultural products such as chilies and watermelons, quadrupling their annual income compared with growing corn in the past. Today, at the age of 37, she is hailed locally as "Chili Sister."

"Two chilies cost 8 yuan in Singapore, but only 5 mao in my hometown. This contrast gradually planted the idea of returning home to start a business," Yang Xiaowei said. Riding the wave of booming industries such as logistics and e-commerce, and relying on promotions at various exhibitions and trade fairs, she gradually built up customers in various places. In the next stage, she does not plan to expand the chili planting area for the time being, but instead will process about 30% of the average annual output, chilies that fail to meet standards in color and shape, into chili sauce, to further capture the domestic and international agricultural and sideline products consumer market.