What Happened To Huy Fong Sriracha?

Like many millennials, I have to rank sriracha as my favorite condiment. Hot sauce is incredibly versatile and has the ability to improve any meal. But unlike most hot sauces, sriracha adds some enticing garlicky flavor instead of just pure heat. Plus, its thicker consistency makes it ideal for dipping.

Of course, while there are numerous brands of sriracha available, the undisputed king is Huy Fong. The rooster bottle is to sriracha what Heinz is to ketchup. When someone says "sriracha," most people immediately call that proud bird and his spicy red sauce to mind. However, Huy Fong has been somewhat elusive in recent years, and even worse, many say that its tried-and-true taste has actually changed.

Back in July 2020, Huy Fong sent shockwaves through the market by warning the public that in the midst of COVID-related supply chain issues, a sriracha shortage loomed. What many thought would be a few months without the beloved condiment turned out to be a few years, with the sauce virtually disappearing from store shelves. Finding a bottle of sriracha was like finding a needle in a haystack, with fans joyously posting on Reddit when they found a bottle in the wild. A black market even sprung up, with bottles selling for upwards of $150.

The company cited severe drought issues as the cause of the shortage, and reiterated this when it suspended production again in April 2022. But it turns out there was more to the story.

For 28 years, California-based Underwood Ranches acted as Huy Fong's sole supplier of chili peppers. But a tense argument in November 2016 led to a multi-million-dollar lawsuit and the end of the companies' longstanding partnership, as Fortune details.

Huy Fong sued Underwood in 2017, claiming the company was overcharged for the previous year's pepper harvest, and Underwood countersued, alleging fraud and breach of contract. The court found that Huy Fong did in fact overpay by $1.4 million, but ultimately ruled in Underwood's favor, ordering Huy Fong to pay the farmer more than $23 million ($13.3 million in compensatory damages, $10 million in punitive damages), minus the $1.4 million overcharge, in 2019.

With the decades-long relationship terminated, Huy Fong began sourcing jalapeños from Mexican farms that couldn't keep up with the demand, leading to sriracha production issues. Although Huy Fong spun this in the media as a "chili shortage" that seemingly stemmed from environmental factors (like the ones that affect our orange, peach, and wine supply), there wasn't truly a shortage in the strictest sense. Underwood even told NBC Los Angeles in 2023 that his jalapeño crops were doing just fine and that there would be no sriracha shortage at all if Underwood and Huy Fong hadn't fallen out. In fact, Huy Fong's former pepper supplier now makes its own sriracha, though we didn't think it was all that impressive.

After the 2022 shortages, Huy Fong seemed to have surreptitiously aggregated new spice suppliers, and those beloved rooster bottles finally reappeared on grocery store shelves across the country. Rejoice, right? Well, not exactly.

Sriracha lovers on the web say that the new peppers have resulted in a product that is markedly different from the Huy Fong sriracha they knew and loved. Multiple users on one Reddit thread claimed the new product tasted like "dirty carrots." Other Redditors noticed that the color of the new sauce was a bit more orange, whereas the original was more of a dark red. The general consensus seemed to be that the new stuff tastes different — namely, it isn't as hot as it used to be.

In May 2024, Huy Fong Foods sent a letter to its wholesale buyers saying it would be pausing production. This temporary pause was placed on the sriracha because the company's jalapeño supplier delivered an unsatisfactory batch of peppers. More specifically, the peppers were too green (they needed to be red) to deliver the quality and consistency fans of the sriracha brand are accustomed to. 

Because of this subpar batch of peppers, Huy Fong also paused production of its other products such as chili garlic and sambal oelek. Thankfully, this 2024 sriracha shortage was once again temporary and Huy Fong Foods planned to go back into production once it received a new batch of peppers from its supplier. The next harvesting season for the chili peppers began after Labor Day.  

Huy Fong's Sriracha fans may be loyal but they're no fools, and they've been burned (pun somewhat unintentional) by the brand one too many times. So, while many can be happy the shortages have been temporary, they've also been highly aware of changes to their beloved product and on the lookout for alternatives to Huy Fong Sriracha.

During the original shortage I tried a couple Huy Fong alternatives, but the one I kept going back to was Roland sriracha. Although it doesn't taste identical to the rooster sauce, it's more than serviceable. When I tasted it side-by-side with the new Huy Fong, I noticed that Roland was spicier, much spicier, and its heat lingered longer. The more I went back and forth between the two srirachas, the more I realized that the new Huy Fong actually wasn't very spicy at all. The classic garlicky, vinegary taste was still there, but the classic heat seemed to have dropped off. In fact, since it lacked the heat we expect from sriracha, it tasted more like a different condiment altogether.

Ultimately, whether or not you'll like the newly formulated rooster sauce — or even notice a difference at all — will depend on what you liked about the original. If you liked its smooth, garlicky taste, you will continue to be satisfied by the rooster bottle. But if you're looking for that punchy spice, you're better off seeking sriracha alternatives like Roland or Tabasco sriracha or even seeking out new hot sauces that are destined to become classics.