Made with just a few basic ingredients — garlic vinegar sugar salt and chili peppers (the type varies by brand) — Sriracha sauce has gone from a local delicacy in Thailand to a wildly popular condiment in countries around the world. But this spicy sauce has a few surprises up its sleeve. For example there are several sriracha brands out there but most of us are probably familiar with the company Huy Fong. This sauce has taken the world by storm with sales increasing an impressive 45% from 2007 to 2021 in the U.S. alone.
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 C'est la vie. | 2019-09-12 19:00:03 |  230 Views |
10 FACTS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT SRIRACHA | NL
Part of the reason for Huy Fong sriracha’s success and the popularity of sriracha in general can be attributed to younger generations’ interest in exploring global and fusion cuisines. But if you ask most fans it comes down to sriracha’s unique blend of flavors and the heat it adds to almost any dish you can add it to. In addition to smaller sriracha brands big names like famed hot sauce purveyor Tabasco have also jumped on the bandwagon and it’s no wonder. Experts predict that the market for sriracha will only continue to grow in the years to come. But did you know that Huy Fong the brand that popularized sriracha worldwide in the first place might not survive to enjoy that same success? Whether you’re a casual fan or completely obsessed with the spice here’s more about that plus nine other facts you probably didn’t know about sriracha.
Although it is inspired by Asian cuisine and has its origins in Asia Huy Fong Sriracha sauce is actually an American creation. The sauce and the company's creator David Tran was born in Vietnam to a family of Cantonese ancestry. When the Vietnam War ended the new government did not take kindly to Chinese immigrants so Tran and his family left the country in the late 1970s eventually settling in California.
In Vietnam Tran had started making his own hot sauce. Now he was starting over in the US. In 1980 he founded Huy Fong Foods named after the boat that brought him to America and began selling his hot sauce out of a van. He soon made enough money to move into a factory and begin producing his sauce which he named sriracha on a much larger scale. In 2020 Huy Fong Foods generated an estimated $131 million in sales annually. Today Huy Fong is estimated to be worth $1 billion. We may think of sriracha as simply a deliciously spicy condiment but behind it all lies the turmoil of war the sting of prejudice and an American dream come true—at least when it comes to Huy Fong’s version of the sauce.
