A looming Sriracha shortage has hot sauce lovers feeling fiery, after the maker of the popular condiment said it was suspending sales over the summer due to a shortage of chili peppers.
Southern California-based Huy Fong Inc confirmed that its beloved products, including Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, Chili Garlic and Sambal Oelek, would be affected, according to Bloomberg.
In an April email to customers, the company described the pepper shortage as "severe" and related to the climate. The company sources its peppers from various farms in California, New Mexico and Mexico, and said that weather conditions were affecting the quality of the peppers and deepening the chili pepper shortage.
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Sriracha Lovers Burned as Maker Halts Production Due to Pepper Shortage
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(Score: 1) by pTamok on Saturday June 11 2022, @05:13PM (11 children)
Where am I going to get my capsaicin hit from now?
(Score: 1, Redundant) by rufty on Saturday June 11 2022, @05:20PM (1 child)
Don’t Panic Captain Mainwaring! DON'T PANIC!!!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday June 11 2022, @09:21PM
Stupid boy....
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday June 11 2022, @05:33PM (2 children)
You could take some crushed red pepper, blend that with stuff, and ferment it.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/235276/how-to-make-homemade-sriracha-sauce/ [allrecipes.com]
I've been meaning to try it but never got around to it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by donkeyhotay on Saturday June 11 2022, @08:06PM
I like working with fermented foods and made my own fermented sriracha sauce with hot peppers given to me by a friend from his garden. Although the fermentation is not strictly necessary it does give a certain zing to the end result. The final product was, in my opinion, even better than Huy Fong's. It was great while it lasted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2022, @08:14PM
This looks good, I'll have to give this a shot. I'm used to fermenting the peppers and garlic in a brine first, then blending and adding sugar and vinegar. I wonder what the differences would be.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday June 11 2022, @06:07PM (1 child)
Kikkoman's Sriracha better anyhow.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2022, @08:03PM
Wonder where they get their peppers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2022, @04:58PM
The deer and rabbit repellant from the hardware store.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 13 2022, @02:38PM (2 children)
You can still get Habaneros from the grocery store, plenty of C-fiber killing capsaicin in those.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday June 13 2022, @03:06PM (1 child)
You can still get Habaneros from the grocery store, plenty of C-fiber killing capsaicin in those.
Well, as is usual, ...in rats.
Pain, 1990: Capsaicin: actions on nociceptive C-fibres and therapeutic potential [nih.gov]
I believe capsaicin is used in treatment of neuropathic pain.
Topical capsaicin for chronic neuropathic pain in adults [nih.gov]
Capsaicinoids in the treatment of neuropathic pain: a review [nih.gov]
High-Dose Capsaicin for the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain: What We Know and What We Need to Know [nih.gov]
Capsaicin applied to the skin for chronic neuropathic pain in adults [cochrane.org]
Capsaicin for neuropathic pain: linking traditional medicine and molecular biology [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 13 2022, @03:29PM
Rats, and my grandfather. He grew his own peppers, would bring his own hot sauce to restaurants because he couldn't taste anything otherwise.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 11 2022, @05:20PM (1 child)
My peppers aren't growing well this year, either. Tomatoes are doing great, but the peppers are puny little things. I'm investigating the idea of a fall crop of peppers, which I've never done before.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 13 2022, @02:42PM
It's not just a poor crop yield, it's also supply chain shocks. Modern agriculture in 2019 was predicting consumer demand within historically precise targets, meaning farmers were growing basically just enough (close as possible) produce to meet market demands. In 2020 consumers became less predictable, by a large fraction. In addition to shortages, there were also overages of other crops that had to be recycled without ever attempting to market, because of the new variations in market demand.
Throw a poor crop yield on top of that landscape and now you've got a hot sauce shortage.
The one I really don't understand is the grape jelly shortage. I mean: really? Did PB&J consumption spike _that_ much?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday June 11 2022, @09:21PM (5 children)
I didn't notice any shortage. Shelves was stocked with it and all the other similar products. So so far no shortage and it's two months after the warning was sent out. That said one would assume they could source their peppers from someplace else. I doubt you can taste the California in them or whatever.
But if you are a afraid of running out I guess it's as good as time as any to start growing or making your own. Also Sriracha just isn't all that hot from a Scoville unit perspective. So there is ample room to kick it up a notch. After all it's spicy ketchup with a crapton of suger in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2022, @11:33PM (2 children)
Sriracha is not a spicy ketchup, because it has no tomatoes in it. It is a spicy replacement for ketchup.
$3 for 28 oz is a good price normally, but I was able to snag markdowns once in a while for even cheaper. I still have at least a gallon of the stuff so I am chuckling at this shortage. Could use some Sambal Oelek though.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday June 12 2022, @01:18PM (1 child)
You are correct. A "spicy" ketchup replacement. I look at it when I was in the store today, there are a few different once and all the various Sriracha copies and it seems that the core ingredient tho is still suger. So perhaps it's more suger-water-with-pepper flavoring. But it's no surprise that a lot of people like it with all that suger in it. I wonder what has more suger in it tho if it's Heinz Ketchup or the Srirachas. Still there are a lot of copies now, the one from Huy Fong is not just one of many and it's not the cheapest one they had.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2022, @07:03PM
I wasn't aware that was the case with these sauces. I'm very familiar with barbecue sauces with sugar as the predominant ingredient because I specifically search out for bottles where it isn't. However, the more popular brands (Sweet Baby Rays, Heinz, Famous Dave's, etc.) all list HFC has the first ingredient. When bbq sauce is used on the grill, that sugar can be an important part where it caramelizes and carbonizes and can become an important part of the flavor profile, but I use these sauces as a condiment on a lot of things so I'd prefer to go with brands where sugar is down the chain a bit.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 13 2022, @02:47PM (1 child)
Another possibility is that there is actually a Sriracha surplus, but they're circulating this "warning" to attempt to free up some storage space by getting consumers to store their product for them.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @02:33PM
Nice theory but how does it explain the empty shelves?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday June 11 2022, @09:58PM (10 children)
It was better than the store bought. Too bad it only lasted 1-2 weeks (after 1 week I kinda looked at it funny and I mostly did a 'yeah, no' when it deveoped white fuzz above the liquid line).
I've also made my own horseradish, mustard and ketchup. Both suffered the same fate. Both are better than store bought, but the shelf life is measured in days, not months. I dunno about you but I have a hard time consuming 1 cup sriacha/mustard/horseradich/ketchup the week before it goes bad.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 5, Informative) by captain normal on Saturday June 11 2022, @10:36PM (2 children)
Likely not enough vinegar, these type of sauces need acid to stop the mold.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2022, @07:13AM (1 child)
Or higher salt content with lactic acid generated by halophiles, good for you [researchgate.net]
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday June 13 2022, @02:59AM
Yes of course, for some reason I had assumed he used salt.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2022, @11:24PM (2 children)
You can put sriracha on damn near anything. Fried rice, pizza, curry, whatever.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2022, @07:01AM (1 child)
Try putting some up your arse, tell us if you could.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2022, @04:07PM
Tricky put some Deep Heat on his dick before he went into class just to see if he could handle it.
The joke here is that Deep Heat is an analgesic, so of course he put it on his dick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2022, @02:35AM (1 child)
who knew that all those preservatives they put in stuff were actually necessary /s
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2022, @07:22AM
They may be sufficient but aren't necessary. Choosing the right fermentation regime is another solution. Pasteurizing the sauce and keeping it in closed bottles is yet another.
Not like people were using exotic preservatives in their sauces. [redhousespice.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2022, @07:27AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2022, @04:10PM
Ace [tmi-comic.com]? is that you?