Hot commodity! Fans scramble to find beloved Huy Fong Sriracha sauce but instead find empty shelves in stores and exorbitant prices online ... and the shortage won't end anytime soon
- A national shortage of Huy Fong Sriracha sauce is sending fans into a tizzy
- Producer says weather conditions have severely impacted chili pepper crops
- Desperate shoppers are paying sky-high prices online to get the sauce
A dire national shortage of Huy Fong Sriracha is driving fans of the popular hot sauce to take desperate measures to secure the condiment.
As supplies have dwindled due to a shortage of the chili peppers that are the sauce's main ingredient, shoppers have launched wide-ranging hunts for stores where it remains in stock, and faced paying sky-high prices online.
In California, there have even been reports of customers swiping the iconic bottles, with their green caps and rooster logo, off tables from a local restaurant chain.
'This Sriracha chili sauce shortage is getting ridiculous now,' one Twitter user wrote. 'If you see any left in your local Asian supermarket with the green cap bottle, hoard them like toilet paper during Covid.'
The shortage appears to be an extension of supply chain issues that date back to last year, when California-based Huy Fong Foods said drought conditions in Mexico caused a shortage of the red jalapeno peppers used to make Sriracha.
'Unfortunately, we are still experiencing a shortage of raw material,' the company told DailyMail.com in a statement this week.
'Although some production did resume this past Fall season, we continue to have a limited supply that continues to affect our production. At this time, we have no estimations of when supply will increase.
'Because we do not sell directly to retail/market levels, we cannot determine when the product will hit shelves again and/or who currently has the product in stock.
'We are grateful for your continued patience and understanding during this unprecedented inventory shortage. We are currently working on trying to avoid future shortages,' the statement added.
According to data earlier this year from grocery delivery service Instacart, Huy Fong Sriracha is the number two most popular hot sauce in the US, second only to Frank's RedHot.
The production shortage has left devoted fans scrambling to get their hands on the sauce, and some sellers have jacked up prices to take advantage of the situation.
The standard 17-ounce bottles, which typically retail for around $4 to $6, are now fetching $30 or more on eBay.
On Amazon Marketplace, one seller listed the hot sauce for a staggering $179 for a package of two 17-ounce bottles.
TikTok user @eviesjourneys posted a video in April, describing how she visited six retailers searching for the sauce, before finally giving in and paying $35 for a two-pack of the bottles on Amazon.
'I love Sriracha, I eat Sriracha every single day,' she explained to her followers.
In San Francisco, customers have resorted to stealing bottles of Siracha from local restaurant chain Senor Sisig, according to SFGATE.
'They literally disappear,' Mariel Edwards, the chain's operations manager, told the outlet. 'We haven't seen people take them, but there is a bottle that will go missing.'
Other restaurants that normally stock Sriracha are facing their own dilemma as suppliers jack up costs.
Michael Csau, co-owner of the restaurant Pho Viet in Washington DC, told NPR that if the price of Sriracha goes much higher, he'll have to switch to a different brand.
'Usually when I bought one case, it was roughly around $30 to $32. Now it's up to $50, almost double the price. If it keeps going up, we cannot afford it,' Csau said.
'But people, they are used to the taste right now. So when they taste [another brand], they'll know right away,' he said.
Last year, Huy Fong Foods blamed weather conditions for a shortage of chili peppers, amid a historic drought.
The company sources its peppers from various farms in California, New Mexico and Mexico, and said that weather conditions were affecting the quality of the peppers and deepening the chili pepper shortage.
'Currently, due to weather conditions affecting the quality of chili peppers, we now face a more severe shortage of chili,' the company said in an April 2022 letter to customers.
The letter said that in addition to its Sriracha, the pepper shortage was also impacting Huy Fong's only other two products, a chili garlic sauce, and sambal oelek, based on an Indonesian recipe.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the weather issues were driving the ongoing shortages this year, with the company citing unspecified materials shortages.
Huy Fong Foods was recently valued at $1 billion by research firm IBISWorld, based on estimated sales of $131 million in 2020.
The company is privately owned by founder David Tran, who fled from Vietnam in 1978 with his wife and two children to start a new life in America.
The wholesale price of Sriracha hasn't changed since the early 1980s, and neither have the ingredients: chili, sugar, salt, garlic and vinegar.
Tran remains doggedly focused on the quality of his Sriracha, telling Forbes in a rare interview earlier this year: 'I want to continue to make a good quality product, like making the hot sauce spicier…and not think about making more profits.'
'I could use less expensive ingredients or promote my products to make more money,' added Tran. 'But no—my goal is always to try to make a rich man's hot sauce at a poor man's price.'
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Warning issued about when Sriracha shortage could end, as prices skyrocket - Daily Mail
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