Customers would come to purchase the sauce by itself and Tao took notice. Her restaurant began to gain popularity, particularly for its sauce. She became known as a 'godmother' to poor students as she would always give them discounts and some extra food. In 1989, Tao opened up her own restaurant in Guiyang, Guizhou where she sold simple noodles with spicy hot sauce with soybeans. She began to sell rice curd and vegetables in a street stall. She went to Guangzhou to find a factory job as a migrant worker but after her husband died, returned to Guizhou to care for her children.
Not long after, her husband became sick and she had to earn money to cover for her husband's medical costs and support her two sons. Īt the age of 20, Tao married to an accountant in the local geological team and gave birth to two sons: Li Guishan ( 李贵山) and Li Hui ( 李辉). During the Great Chinese Famine, she dug for wild vegetables and tried various ways to eat plant roots using whatever she had to try and make the little food her family had taste better. She was the eighth girl in the family and wasn't taught how to read or write. Tao was born in a poverty-stricken village, in Meitan County, Guizhou, in January 1947.
Tao is a member of the Communist Party of China and a National People's Congress deputy. Tao Huabi ( Chinese: 陶华碧 born January 1947) is a Chinese entrepreneur best known as the founder of Lao Gan Ma or Old Godmother.
