Global Courant
Last summer, Uyen Le, owner and executive chef of Be U Vietnamese Street Food in East Hollywood, cleared out her Sriracha bottles and tried to ration her supply. Huy Fong Foods had announced a shortage of the red chili peppers it uses to make the sauce, and the world took notice.
One of her associates suggested asking the public for help. Be U offered free meals in exchange for Huy Fong Sriracha sauce, getting about 300 bottles during the promotion. A year later, the restaurant still has about 100 bottles left.
“I was always aware of the supply chain issues related to climate change, and I understood that you have to adapt to it. It’s the reality we have to live with,” Le said. “When we heard about the latest shortage, we built up a stock. I was like, ‘Oh my god, is this too much?’ But it turned out to be prescient.”
Now, heading into another summer, the world is a little duller, as the makers of the famous Sriracha hot sauce, with its iconic green cap and the rooster on the bottle, say they still don’t know when their stock will be back. bounce.
In the Bay Area, some desperate Sriracha lovers have started sweeping away bottles of Philippine restaurant chain Señor Sisig, SFGate reported. A single 28-ounce bottle went on sale this month for $29.99 at an Asian grocery store in Oakland, with a limit of two per customer.
Dozens of counterfeit Huy Fong Sriracha bottles line the shelves at 168 Market in Alhambra, but the section reserved for Huy Fong Foods bottles is empty. A market manager said the hot sauce sells out in a day when the store receives a shipment, and customers are limited to one bottle.
“Many people call looking for the Sriracha sauce,” said the manager, who did not give his name. “Everyone is polite. But we know people always want it. It’s been that way for several months.”
The situation is no better online, where virtually all Sriracha options are out of stock on Amazon. At one point, a two-pack of 17-ounce bottles was listed for over $160.
Drought in Mexico is to blame for the shortages that persisted over the past year, a phenomenon experts warn will become much more common on a warming planet.
For nearly 30 years, Huy Fong Foods—which processes about 50,000 tons of chili peppers a year to make its Sriracha, chili garlic sauce, and sambal oelek—purchased all of its peppers from Underwood Ranches in Ventura County, until the parties split due to a bitter taste. . contract dispute that led to a multimillion-dollar judgment in favor of Underwood in 2019.
Huy Fong now sources its chili peppers from multiple suppliers across Mexico, where severe drought has limited crops and led to water shortages in many cities and towns.
In a statement, the Irwindale-based company said it is “still experiencing raw material shortages” and has no estimate of when supplies will return. It produced some Sriracha in the fall, but production was limited.
Although Huy Fong Foods said it is working to prevent a recurrence, future food supply shortages are almost certain with the current amount of water used in the United States, said Gary Nabhan, an agricultural ecologist and professor emeritus at the University of Arizona.
Large parts of Mexico receive water from the Colorado River, but American farms are entitled to that water first. For years, farmers have grown their produce with dwindling water supplies, but it has gotten to the point where the methods of growing those crops must adapt to a changing landscape, according to a recent study authored by Nabhan.
Jalapeño peppers require less than half the amount of water needed to grow alfalfa or pecans, but drought and competition from water-hungry crops upstream still lead to smaller harvests, Nabhan said.
“Climate change is the ultimate driver, but it’s also how we manage water equitably,” Nabhan said. “Any politician will hesitate to allocate less water, but we are not asking farmers to switch to more efficient irrigation techniques.”
The United States is the largest importer of Mexican agricultural products, up 14% last year to a record high of $44.2 billion, according to the US Census Bureau and the Mexican government.
Chili peppers thrive in dry climates, and Mexican states such as Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Michoacán are among the top producers, according to Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
But Mexico is gripped by a scorching heat wave and large parts of the country are in a drought, according to the The latest drought monitor report from the Mexican government.
While shortages of chili peppers used in Sriracha hot sauce draw public attention, other crops are also suffering from the drought, said Shon Hiatt, an associate professor in USC’s Marshall School of Business who focuses on global energy and Agriculture.
Kansas, one of the largest sources of hard red winter wheat, is expected to have a historically weak crop this year due to drought. according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
“Right now, we’re seeing the drought hit right in the Midwest. If you were to draw a line from Texas, from Mexico, just go straight north all the way up to Minnesota and the Dakotas,” Hiatt said.
The disruption to Huy Fong Foods’ supply chain due to the drought is similar to the broader situation that gripped the US in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. During those first few months, manufacturers couldn’t produce items like ibuprofen or electronics because the core components came from abroad.
“We realized, ‘Oh God, we’re highly susceptible to supply chain shocks, because we buy everything from China and Southeast Asia. We’re not making anything here,” Hiatt said. “It’s the same thing we see in agriculture.”
Huy Fong Foods declined an interview request, saying in a statement it could not specify which markets will receive more of its products.
Some people can’t wait, so they make their own sauce.
Kristin Nguyen, chef and owner of Garlic and Chives, a Michelin-recommended Asian fusion restaurant in Garden Grove’s Little Saigon, didn’t think twice about the cost of Sriracha sauce before the shortage. But the average bottles are now sold at a premium.
“I put it in a lot of my sauces, but I didn’t want to pass the cost on to my customers and I don’t want to sacrifice flavor,” Nguyen said. “I put my whole heart and soul into everything I make.”
The labor and supplies to make her own Sriracha sauce are costly, Nguyen said. It takes about 10 pounds of red jalapeños, which can sell for up to $8 a pound. There is also the cost of vinegar, sugar and other ingredients, and the whole process takes time to ferment. Before the Sriracha shortage, Nguyen just reached for a bottle of Huy Fong.
“It really hits me because it takes time away from other things I could be doing for my company,” Nguyen said.
She thinks her Sriracha is close to Huy Fong’s classic taste and said she can work around the problem.
“If (Huy Fong) wants to brainstorm some ideas for replacements,” she said, “we can crack the code.”
