Why is there a Huy Fong chili garlic sauce shortage in 2023? We have all experienced many product shortages over the past three years. This covers everything from cold cuts from Subway to popcorn to disposable coffee cups to cream cheese. The popular green-capped hot sauce from Huy Fong Foods is Sriracha. It may become more difficult to find.
We might have looked for our favorite Sriracha hot sauce recently only to find bare shelves or warnings about a limited supply. Huy Fong, the most well-known Sriracha brand, is no longer available after the firm briefly stopped production in 2022. The red jalapeno chili pepper crop has been affected by problems brought on by the extreme drought in Mexico. This has led to shortages of the item for consumers across the country. Let us view it further in this article.
How is Huy Fong developed?
David Tran is responsible for Sriracha’s creation. He is a Vietnamese spicy sauce manufacturer who came to America in the late 1970s to sell his product. He created a mixture that included salt, sugar, vinegar, garlic, and red jalapeno chili peppers.
The item quickly gained popularity after becoming a hit with the Asian population of Los Angeles. Huy Fong Foods, Inc. was established by Tran in 1980. The classic red bottle has a green cap, and the label features a rooster. The sauce was named after the Thai beach village of Si Racha, according to a 2019 NPR article about it.
The business regularly produces 18,000 sauce bottles every hour. The scarcity has severely impacted production. Customers were informed in a memo from the business that the product wouldn’t start shipping until late 2022. There would still be shortages until early 2023.
When the chili garlic sauce shortage started?
In 2022, the maker of Sriracha, Huy Fong Foods, Inc., sent a letter that warned of an impending shortage. It is not only for Sriracha but also for its Chilli Garlic and Sambal Oelek sauces. Huy Fong stated this in the letter published on the IFD website. It claimed that the company has been dealing with “a scarcity of chili pepper stocks” since July 2020.
Since then, it appears that things have only gotten worse. Thus, the California-based company reports that it is currently experiencing “a serious shortage of chili.” This happened as a result of unfavorable weather conditions harming its pepper harvests. It immediately warned me it couldn’t make those three sauces (Sriracha Hot Chili sauce, Chili Garlic, or Sambal Oelek). Also, it advised its wholesale clients not to guarantee supplies of Sriracha or any of its hot siblings for any of their clients.
Red jalapeno chili peppers Huy Fong use are mainly sourced from Mexico, New Mexico, and California. These three regions are undergoing a megadrought. The experts connect this to human-caused climate change.” The region has had crop failures due to its harsh weather patterns and dry soil.
How long might the shortage of Sriracha persist?
According to the California-based food company, all orders placed on or after April 19, 2022, were scheduled after Labour Day. It occurred on September 6, 2022, in the order they were received. At that time, they anticipated that the shortfall would persist all summer long and into September.
Because it wouldn’t get enough inventory to fill the requests, the company stated it wouldn’t take any new orders before September 2202. That might imply that some companies won’t get their supplies until near the end of the year. If Sriracha sauce is unavailable on our neighborhood supermarket’s shelves, it can be months before we can refill.
Kentucky has already experienced an impact on at least one restaurant. Because of a shortage, Brady’s Sushi and Hibachi posted on Facebook that it could stop providing free Sriracha at its tables. Thus, it would only allow one spicy mayo per two rolls.
The pandemic has caused shocks to the world’s food supply. This has only been made worse by record inflation and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled several initiatives that, according to the agency, would help solve some problems affecting the supply chain from farms to store shelves.
Is Sriracha sauce available online?
One might be able to buy Sriracha sauce online from merchants like Walmart, Target, and Kroger, depending on where you live. Some merchants are hiking up the price of the hot sauce on Amazon, so beware of that.
If you can, buy a bottle of Sriracha sauce now. But just like in past shortages, experts don’t advise stockpiling bottles of the hot sauce. There might be a cap on the number of items you can purchase if it’s anything like other things that are in short supply.
Conclusion
Hot sauce alternatives can help consumers get by unless crops can be revived. Gochujang sauce, Thai sweet chili sauces, or chili garlic sauce are available. Some people enjoy hot chili sauces with strong flavors, like Tabasco, Chilula, Texas Pete’s, or Frank’s Hot Sauce.
The amount of vinegar used in the recipes for chili sauces varies. They might be made in a Mexican or Louisianan manner. Some people use Tabasco peppers, whereas others use cayenne, red, arbol, puya, and piquin peppers.
As a wholly original sauce made with red jalapenos, Sriracha belongs to a separate category. The original Thai hot sauces are another option you might have to look for at an Asian specialty store. Try several brands of sauce that resemble Sriracha, like Kikkoman and Lee Kum Kee, as per experts. A local Market Basket store currently has a Tabasco brand of Sriracha on the shelf, including red jalapeno among its ingredients.