On the day that the foundation of Craig Underwood’s business collapsed, he was on vacation—at the beach with his wife, daughters, and grandchildren in Hawaii.
It was November 2016, and the fourth-generation California farmer had just completed a perfect pepper harvest—another high point for a business, Underwood Ranches, that had grown exponentially over three decades on the strength of a single crop. As the sole supplier of the juicy red jalapeños for sriracha, Huy Fong Foods’ iconic fiery-red chili-garlic sauce, Underwood’s empire of peppers had spread from a 400-acre family farm in the 1980s to 3,000 acres across two counties outside Los Angeles.
Sriracha’s rise had by then become the stuff of business legend. That spicy, slightly sweet, good-on-everything sauce, in the instantly recognizable bottle with its white rooster emblem and bright green nozzle, was the brainchild of David Tran, who had first devised the recipe and sold the stuff in L.A. in 1980 as a Vietnamese refugee starting a new life for his family.
Tran’s business motto is “make product, and not profit,” but Huy Fong had become the No. 3 hot sauce brand in America—all as a private company, without selling even the smallest share to the country’s Big Food titans. At the time, Tran’s green-tipped bottles could be found in one in 10 American kitchens and on the International Space Station.
Tran started a separate company, ChiliCo, to buy and sell chili peppers. Underwood didn’t want to work with ChiliCo because he feared it wouldn’t have the assets to guarantee payments. To make matters worse, Underwood says, Tran and Lam made several failed attempts to hire Roberts, his COO, to work for ChiliCo.
So the chili sauce maker switched up the deal, and then tried to poach from the chili grower. What a dumb move.
On the other hand, it’s a really bad idea to be locked into a single source for your raw materials. It sounds like Tran was trying to mitigate that risk in a fairly reasonable way. If he can buy and sell from other farmers, there’s a buffer if the OG farm can’t deliver. And he could also continue to use the OG farm as primary supplier, while selling off excess chilis to other producers.
All of this is why supply contracts and backup supply chain plans exist. Risk mitigation is normal. Like they said near the end of the article, businesses sometimes need to have an adult in the room.
Tran’s attempt to force Underwood out of their shared enterprise, while still dependent on his supply, was clearly a lapse in judgement. The results speak for themselves in this case.
I wonder if Tran and Underwood ever had a conversation about the precariousness of both of their positions - one having a single source for product, and the other having a single buyer? Was there an attempt to find a win-win solution? Or did Tran simply think he could leverage Underwood into competing with slave labor imports?
The Huy Fong Foods contract ending was a blessing for hot sauce makers in SoCal, as it opened up a gigantic ranch of the best quality peppers in the area. A lot of little sauce brands now dot the area and some truly excellent flavors have come out of them.
I was disappointed when this happened but now I’m glad I can’t find it anymore. I had become lazy, just putting it on everything. Now I have a variety of sauces I choose based on what I’m putting it on. There are a lot of good sauces out there. With proper pairing you might not miss Sriracha at all.
Yep we used to have 2 or 3 bottles of hot sauces in our fridge now we have probably 15. Lots of great sauces started coming out of this whole mess.
Great article, thanks. It’s amazing they would choose to mutually lose so much money over a personal spat. RIP rooster sauce.
It looks like Underwood Ranch is making their own sriracha now, wonder if it tastes the same.From the comments I saw on Reddit everytime this was posted, no, it doesn’t.
Good to know, thanks.
I’ve purchased a few bottles of the underwood ranch one and it doesn’t taste the same; it’s not bad, but it tastes more bland than huy fong.
Underwood Farms sells sauces on their website that are really good. I loved their Carolina gold sauce. As for Sriracha, Huy Fong brand was good but its peppers and garlic so it can be easily replicated. Other brands use different ratios, maybe add an ingredient here and there so some will be better than others.
It’s clearly not easily replicated. Like others here, I’ve tried numerous brands, and somehow they’re all comically, depressingly off-base.
I’ve tried 2 knock off brands, and they add so much freaking garlic to their recipe that I have to throw it in the trash…
A couple of months ago, I broke down and opened my last bottle of the Huy Fong I had in stock. The best by date was January 2024 and I had no intention of selling it, so figured I’d enjoy one last round of the sauce.
In the past year and change, I’ve tried all the sauces that my local grocers carry in-store. I have settled on the Tobasco version. It’s different from Huy Fong brand and takes some getting used to the differences, but pretty much all the stores in my area carry it, the price is reasonable, and it has its own merits.
I’ve tried some of the more niche brands, but they tend to cost more and are harder to find or impossible to find in-store and honestly I’m just tired of looking and trying new ones all the time when it’s so hit or miss.
The worst sriracha I’ve tried (so far) is the Chickfila sriracha. It’s basically Asian inspired ginger flavored sugar syrup with no real redeeming quality in the context of sriracha sauce. If Huy Fong is your jam, this is pretty much the furthest thing away from that which you could possibly imagine.
I liked the OX brand. It isn’t as good as the OG but I found it to be a good replacement. I’ll give the tabasco a try tho
This is what a lot of local Thai places started using near me.
I don’t think I’ve seen that brand in stores in my area, but if I do, I’ll give it a try.
The Tabasco is a dumbed down version of sriracha. So don’t go in expecting it to be a perfect reproduction of the Huy Fong brand or you will be disappointed. It’s more garlicy, a bit sweeter, and not as hot. But at least it hasn’t been out of stock for a year+.
Huh, I was wondering why I hadn’t seen the actual name brand in a while…
yeah same. I make a sriracha aoli for sandwhiches n such, and I’ve always only used the OG sauce. I’ve been holding off making more because I couldn’t find any. Guess now I know why. Greed. I wonder how many wonderful things we’ve lost (or never gained) because of greed.
And this is why all medium and big size organizations that survive a long time have somewhat rigid processes and kind of all start looking up the same from a bird’s eye view, no matter if they are public or private, or even if they are legal or illegal. Bureaucracies don’t have moods.
I couldn’t find a good Sriracha knockoff, so I’ve been using Yellow Bird habanero sauce instead
My wife likes their blue agave sriracha, I think it’s OK but personally I like their serrano sauce. I think the flavors in the heat blend well with a wider variety of food.
Personally I don’t worry about the heat, because you can always use different amounts.
I have different hot sauces based on consistency. Like for a chili or on bread for a sandwich liquid is fine, but if I’m doing something in a tortilla then I need that Sriracha thickness, and Yellow Bird fits that niche.
If you’re in the states, also give Secret Aardvark a try. It’s not a Sriracha copy or anything but for me it really scratches that itch of a hot sauce that you really wanna squirt a lot of on anything. It’s fucking delicious.
Secret Aardvark got their start in Portland via guerrilla marketing: literally leaving full bottles on restaurant tables with the salt, sugar, jam, etc. after their meal. I noticed it happening at a small diner, but didn’t out them at the time — just asked the server if she’d seen the hot sauce before. “Nope. That’s not yours? Hunh. Is it any good?” From that point on, it kept popping up in more and more places until it was a local point of pride. Genius. 🤌🏼
Fellow Portlander here with tons of Secret Aardvark sauce in my fridge. I’ve never heard that. That’s brilliant.
Cheers. The sauce is damn tasty.
Yeah they may have done that in Seattle too because I first noticed them randomly popping up on tables in small diner sorta spots around town when I was living there.
It definitely worked, I went home the first time I tried it and ordered multiple bottles and recommend it all the time. I live in the EU now and it’s harder to come by here but I did just find a site that sells it today so I am for sure ordering some.
Pro-tip: the Jamaican Jerk version is incredible for a chicken grillin’ marinade & glaze. 😭🔥🤌🏼
Yeah had that one a few times, it’s a really solid jerk sauce. I like the green sauce they make alright too. The OG recipe is def still my favorite though. So good.
Preach. 🤌🏼
For any sriracha or food history lovers, I recommend this video where the host tracks down the origins of the sauce. Super interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8pacTAmaFA
There are several “official” origin stories of sriracha, one of the world’s fastest growing food products. So we went to the town of Si Racha in central Thailand to dig for ourselves, and followed the threads until we unraveled an incredible story that took us back through two revolutions and across an ocean, as we searched for- and found- the real and incredible history of sriracha sauce.
well so is it coming back ever? when?
I’ve seen it in some specialty stores past 2-3 months, but they’re being sold for 7-10 USD
It shows up at my local grocery store every now and then for the normal price. They still have the tag for it, with all the rest of the knock offs, but it does sell out quick when it comes in. I snagged a bottle a month or so ago, as none of the replacements scratch the same itch and my kids only like the real stuff.
Boooo paywall
I was able read the whole article in the reader mode in safari.
Use reader mode
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Meh. Get with the program, citizen. There are SO many options to choose from, you shouldn’t have any difficulty with paywalls et all these days, FFS.
Dick
I’m so sorry. So very.
