Sriracha: rise and fall

A YouTube documentary published April 15 argues Huy Fong’s Sriracha did not collapse because demand disappeared; it stumbled when supply and sourcing broke under its own scale. (youtube.com) Huy Fong Foods was founded in Los Angeles in 1980 by David Tran, a Vietnamese refugee, and built its brand around the green-capped rooster bottle with little conventional advertising. Forbes reported the company grew into a business with products in nearly one in ten United States households. (forbes.com) For 28 years, Underwood Ranches supplied the ripe red jalapeños that Huy Fong used for Sriracha. That relationship ruptured, and a California jury in 2019 awarded Underwood Ranches $23.3 million after finding Huy Fong liable for damages tied to the dispute. (cnbc.com) Huy Fong then ran into repeated pepper shortages. In June 2022, the company told customers that weather had hurt chili quality so badly that orders placed after April 19 would be delayed until after Labor Day. (bloomberg.com) The shortages returned in May 2024. Huy Fong told wholesalers it was halting production until after Labor Day because its red jalapeños were too green, and some orders placed after May 6 would be canceled. (axios.com) That mattered because Sriracha had become a category, not just a single bottle. McIlhenny introduced Tabasco Sriracha in 2014 as the sauce spread beyond Asian restaurants into mainstream American grocery aisles. (time.com) The supply gaps also gave former partners and newer rivals room to move. Underwood Ranches now sells Dragon Sriracha and markets it as being made from “the original red jalapeño peppers” behind the earlier sauce. (amazon.com) By early 2024, Huy Fong bottles were back on many shelves, but the brand no longer had the field to itself. USA Today reported that Underwood’s competing sauce had fueled speculation about who was now supplying Huy Fong’s peppers. (usatoday.com) Huy Fong has not disappeared. Its Irwindale, California, headquarters still operates, and the company still presents itself as the maker of Sriracha, chili garlic sauce and sambal oelek. (huyfong.com) The documentary’s point is narrower than an obituary: a sauce that grew by word of mouth can lose ground the same way, one empty shelf and one substitute bottle at a time. (youtube.com)