His courtesy name was Songling. Born in Wuzhen, he was a famous industrialist in modern times, and a pioneer of the Chinese national dairy industry. Xiao Jiagan studied hard since childhood and graduated from Wuzhen Zhicai Primary School in 1916. After the May 4th Movement, he decided to save the country and apply for the Department of Business Administration of Fudan University in Shanghai. He has taught at Fudan and Qunzhi. In 1930, he resigned and raised a capital of 80,000 yuan to establish the West Lake Condensed Milk Co., Ltd. Both factories and pastures were scientifically managed, with particular emphasis on the adoption of advanced technologies. All dairy products were comparable in quality to imported products, not only sold well in China, but also exported to Southeast Asian countries.

When the July 7th Incident broke out in 1937, and the Japanese army approached Hangzhou. In order to avoid the factories and pastures been destroyed by the Japanese army, Xiao Jiagan determined to bury the factory equipment underground, sent the dairy cows to the local farmers (with an agreement of not slaughter them and not send them to the enemies), and dismissed employees with tears. And then he left Hangzhou and moved to Zigong in Sichuan Province. At that time, the local soil-based salt-making technology was backward. He carefully studied and improved the technology, inventing the vacuum salt-making machine for stoves. The purity of the salt it produced reached 99.6%, with the productivity increased by 50 times. It owned the national patent. It began the mechanized production of the refined rock salt there, and has been used till now (refers to the National Salt Industry Dictionary).

In order to develop the national dairy industry, Xiao Jiagan did not be afraid of failure and had experienced a hard time. In 1951, he again raised funds to establish Hangzhou United Dairy Factory. After the public-private partnership, it was merged into Hangzhou Minsheng Pharmaceutical Factory, and Xiao Jiagan was transferred to the Hangzhou Light Industry Bureau to serve as an engineer. In 1957, he was transferred to the Heilongjiang Provincial Industrial Department, to build Yakeshi Dairy Factory. In the same year, he was mistakenly regarded as a rightist. In February 1979, he was rehabilitated and his political reputation was come back.