Hey, why does Sriracha taste different now? 

A couple of weeks ago, as I hope you read, some colleagues and I engaged in a hot sauce taste test, where we grabbed as many pepper-based-concoctions as The Weather Vane budget would allow from the local international store and ate them on whatever crackers we found in Caleb’s cupboards. It was a lot of fun, and I had a great time… but, little did I know, I had just stumbled across a tragedy. What had begun as a cutesy review article had become a capsaicin-laced tale of dread.

A few days prior, before we had decided on a definite ordering of hot sauces for the challenge, I had purchased some Sriracha for all of us. It was a personal favorite; one that I hadn’t tasted since the Pre-Covid days, and I thought that, after the taste test was all said and done, I could use it to give my microwave ramen a little zing. It would’ve served as an introductory sauce for our challenge; sriracha really isn’t too spicy on its own, just garlicky: a perfect warm-up for the pain to come. But, I wanted to be sure I wouldn’t inadvertently kill one of my less spice-inclined friends in the first round by including it, so I elected to try some myself. After squeezing some onto a chip, I took a bite, and…

It’s kinda gross! It’s sweeter than I remember, and just… different. It tastes “off”, like the sauce was left in the sun too long or something. I checked the sell-by date and ingredient list, and didn’t see anything out of order. “Do I have Covid?” I thought for an embarrassingly long few seconds; surely my taste buds must be compromised *somehow*. But no, I didn’t have Covid, or faulty taste buds, or anything. It just tasted different. The bottle was fresh. The chips were normal. Everything was as it should be, and yet the sauce was kinda yucky now! Why?

I did some searching online. As it turns out, Huy Fong Foods originally had a singular pepper provider, Underwood Ranches, whom they would pre-pay for their Jalapeno harvest in its entirety. So, for example, if Underwood Ranches would overproduce for a season, Huy Fong may re-pay them after their initial speculative prepayment to make up the difference, or vice versa if a yield was low. The nature of this business agreement was largely informal, having been arrived at over many years via word of mouth, handshakes, and mutual understanding. Up to a point, it had been hugely lucrative for both parties—Huy Fong especially. Underwood Ranches had expanded to cover thousands of acres to keep up with the lion’s share of Huy Fong’s demand. Things seemed positive for the foreseeable future.

And then… the relationship ended. In 2016, Huy Fong Foods attempted to oust the COO of Underwood Ranches, with the hope of courting them to join a subsidiary company of the larger Huy Fong Foods conglomerate. This would effectively grant Huy Fong Foods larger control over the ranch and, importantly, the pay of the farmers. This attempt at market undercutting was met with hostility by Underwood Ranches, and their contractual obligations with Huy Fong were terminated. In retaliation, Huy Fong Foods then sued Underwood Ranches for failing to repay 1.45 million dollars for that growing season, which was *then* met by a retaliatory counter lawsuit from Underwood Ranches for 20 million, alleging breach of contract and fraud. Underwood Ranches won their counter lawsuit via jury, and the partnership was severed for good.

Huy Fong Foods alleged after the litigation that Underwood Ranch had intentions to usurp their pepper sauce with their own, and eventually muscle them out of the hot sauce industry. For a bit of context, the 1.45 million dollars that Huy Fong Foods sued Underwood for amounts to .00145% of the company’s net worth as of 2023, and Underwood Ranch’s winnings account for .022%. 

Those fractions of fractions are the reason my Asian-inspired hot wings don’t taste right anymore. Market economics ruined my ramen. Great.