(Yicai) Oct. 15 -- Guiyang Nanming Laoganma Food has reported record revenue for last year. The Chinese time-honored chili sauce maker’s executive vice president said that was thanks to the implementation of an artificial intelligence quality inspection system.

Laoganma’s revenue reached a record high of CNY5.4 billion (USD806.9 million) in 2025, said Li Xin, the company’s executive VP and chief quality officer. He explained that the defect rate in Laoganma’s key production process dropped to 0.02 percent after the company implemented the AI quality inspection system across all factories last year.

The AI visual quality inspection system uses cameras to identify defective chili peppers and impurities. The cameras scan the conveyor belt every 0.3 seconds, and airflow blows defective chili peppers into the waste bin within 0.3 seconds. The system covers raw material sorting, production quality control, and supply chain scheduling, with production being the area that improved most.

Laoganma once employed more than 600 chili-sorting workers, but after the AI quality inspection system was introduced, only 48 were retained to conduct the final round of experience-based checks, Li noted. In the past, chili peppers were sorted manually, which was prone to oversights from long hours of repetitive work, but AI has dramatically reduced uncertainty in quality control, he added.

Founded by Tao Huabi in 1996, Laoganma grew from a small street-side shop in Guizhou to one of China’s largest chili sauce brands. Its products are now sold in 160 countries and regions worldwide.

Around 2022, Laoganma disbanded its livestreaming team and gradually withdrew from various online promotional activities, choosing to focus on traditional offline distribution channels that generate stable revenue.

According to the 2025 Top 100 Enterprises in Guizhou list, Laoganma’s revenues were CNY5.28 billion in 2022, CNY5.38 billion in 2023, and CNY5.39 billion in 2024, marking steady growth for three consecutive years.

Editor: Futura Costaglione