Published on June 14, 2022 at 6:47 p.m.
Sriracha: the sauce the world loves, soon to be in short supply. – © Ted Soqui/Corbis/Getty Images
Huy Fong Food Inc., the main producer of sriracha sauce, announced in an e-mail to its customers that it is suffering from a shortage of chili peppers. It will only honor orders placed after April from September.
After mustard, sunflower oil or wheat, sriracha sauce will soon run out. Huy Fong Food Inc., the largest producer of the hot sauce, announced this in a note to customers on April 19, 2022, discovered by media including “Bloomberg” in mid-June. As with mustard, the seeds of which are becoming scarce in Canada following heat waves, sriracha will soon experience a shortage due to the climate. “Currently, due to weather conditions affecting the quality of red peppers, we are facing a more severe shortage. Unfortunately, this is beyond our control and without this essential ingredient we will not be able to produce any of our products,” the company lamented.
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No orders taken for five months
This announcement does not take Huy Fong Food Inc. customers by surprise, as they had already been notified. “As you know, we sent an e-mail to all our customers on July 24, 2020 to warn that we are going through a shortage of red pepper”, they write in the introduction of their last letter. A year later, this shortage has worsened. Orders sent after April 19, 2022 will not be scheduled until after September 6 of the same year, in the order they were received.
Sriracha, considered the Asian ketchup, was created in 1949 in a Thai fishing port, from which it bears the name. After conquering the Americans, it made its arrival on the shelves of French supermarkets, and enjoyed the expansion of the market for Asian products. Between 2020 and 2021, sales of Asian cold sauces – the star of which is sriracha – increased by 62.3%, according to a study by NielsenIQ published last January, and relayed by “LSA conso”. Fans of France’s spicy ketchup have an interest in replenishing their stocks reasonably, or rationing their consumption.