Sriracha: More than a Sauce
From vodka to lollipops to potato chips, the rooster-bottle hot sauce became a product people are obsessed with.
According to a report from Technomic, a food and beverage consulting firm, more than half of consumers (54%) said that hot or spicy foods are appealing, compared to 48% in 2011 and 46% in 2009. Younger diners age 18 to 34 were most likely to crave spicy menu items, but polls indicate that spicier foods are hotter across nearly all age demographics.
Sriracha isn’t just a food that people like a lot; it’s a product that people are obsessed with. You can buy sriracha water bottles and sriracha lollipops. Phillips Distilling launched sriracha vodka, and the company expects to sell at least 2.4 million bottles within the year. And there’s also sriracha flavored popcorn and sriracha flavored candy canes. Huy Fong Foods sold 20 million bottles of sriracha in 2012.
U.S., which traces everything from the beginnings of Huy Fong Foods in the early 1980s to the fact that now the company is one of the fastest-growing food producers in America. The company sold 20 million bottles of sriracha last year.
Business Week reports the many accolades sriracha has received, from being named Bon Appétit’s Ingredient of the Year. And over the past several months Lay’s has launched sriracha flavored potato chips. You are able to find sriracha flavored Pringles only at Walmart. The Grocer magazine said volume sales of all sauces were up by 3.4% this year, but those of hot chilli and pepper sauces had increased by 14.2%.
“It’s not just found in south-east Asian restaurants, but is very popular with American southern food; it works well with the pulled pork and dirty burgers,” said Yotam Ottolenghi, a chef.
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The rooster bottle runs short
The demand described here kept growing, but supply did not always keep up. Huy Fong Foods, founded by David Tran and based in Irwindale, California, had sourced its chili peppers from Underwood Ranches since 1988. That partnership ended in 2016 after a dispute; Huy Fong sued, and a jury sided with Underwood, ordering Huy Fong to pay $23.3 million in damages.
In June 2022 Huy Fong temporarily halted production, citing a drought in Mexico that hurt chili quality. In April 2023 the company announced an “unprecedented inventory shortage,” and empty shelves sent bottle prices soaring online. In May 2024 production was suspended again until September at the earliest because of chili sourcing problems, while competing sriracha makers reported no shortage.
Questions people ask
Who makes the original rooster sriracha?
The rooster-bottle sriracha is made by Huy Fong Foods, founded by David Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant who incorporated the company in Los Angeles in February 1980. It moved from Rosemead to a factory in Irwindale, California, in 2010. Tran, a former major in the South Vietnamese Army, arrived in the United States as a refugee in 1979, and the company still sells its sauce in the familiar rooster bottle.
Why was there a sriracha shortage?
Huy Fong Foods blamed poor chili pepper supply. Production was halted in June 2022 after a drought in Mexico, the company announced an unprecedented shortage in April 2023, and it suspended production again in May 2024. Reporting also linked the problem to its 2016 split with longtime pepper grower Underwood Ranches.
