
Sriracha founder reveals the 'secret' wholesale price of his sauce - jmacd
http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/numbers/exclusive-sriracha-founder-reveals-secret-wholesale-price-his-sauce
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zackmorris
God bless Sriracha. I'm willing to take the dent in my average post score,
that's how much I love the dang stuff. Long live Sriracha.

P.S. You haven't smelled a bad factory smell until you've driven past the
sugarbeet processing plants in Nampa, Idaho, or the miles upon miles of
factory farm dairies in eastern Idaho. Maybe Sriracha could use something like
that for their Chewbacca defense.

~~~
jlgreco
Dairy farms are nothing compared to pig farms. Absolutely foul. The smell is
so penetrating it feels like you can smell it through your eyeballs. Cow
manure you can get use to, but I could never get use to pig shit.

Papermills are also infamously smelly, though you can get use to those pretty
quickly.

~~~
greedo
Slaughter yards are the worst. Drive north on I-29 from Omaha to Sioux City
and you can smell the city from 30 miles out. Its nickname is Sewer City, and
it actually made it hard for Gateway Computers to attract talent.

~~~
haberman
I think your information might be a little out of date. The Sioux City
stockyards have been closed for over 10 years:
[http://amarillo.com/stories/032802/usn_smelly.shtml](http://amarillo.com/stories/032802/usn_smelly.shtml)

I grew up in Sioux City in the 80s and you could smell a little, but even then
the stockyards were significantly scaled back from their 1924 peak. I was
there a few months ago and there is no smell any more.

~~~
greedo
I make that drive at least six times a year. Still stinks to high heaven. It's
about the only thing that makes my kids look up from their iPads. With the
stockyards closed, perhaps it's a longterm residual smell, or processing
plants that are still around?

On a side note, I wonder how many head of cattle were slaughtered there over
time.

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Mikeb85
I've read lots of interesting stories about the founding of this company, and
of course I love the product. It's nice to see an entrepreneur that values the
quality of their product first, before business considerations.

As for the dispute with the city, it's the city that enticed him to move his
operations there, then he invested his money, and now they're trying to shut
him down. Very shady business on the part of the city of Irwindale, something
that demands a judge's attention...

~~~
dubfan
Here's an LA Times story that corroborates your comment, and adds some
additional insight: [http://www.latimes.com/local/la-
me-1110-sriracha-20131110,0,...](http://www.latimes.com/local/la-
me-1110-sriracha-20131110,0,262971.story)

> Inspectors from the South Coast Air Quality Management District have visited
> the plant several times without issuing a citation. Tran said in court
> documents that the complaints about the smell originated with an Irwindale
> city councilman's son.

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danso
Wow, I would've never imagined the Sriacha founder to be such a nice,
conscientious guy. A Nobel Peace Prize for him:

> _Q: What do you think about copy-cat Srirachas? A: “It’s good…[take] a red
> flower, it looks good but [it’s] not colorful. You need to have green and
> yellow ... So [in] the market, [if there was] only my hot sauce, [people]
> cannot compare. More competitors [are] better for consumer [choice].”_

> Q: Inflation has more than tripled food prices since you started making the
> hot sauce, but you have never changed your wholesale price. Why? A: “The
> price has increased…but we can cover the increased [food] price. We just
> want to sell more product….[also] if we export to some expensive country, I
> don’t have two prices. Not domestic price and another country, another price
> – only one price.”

Q: What do you think Sriracha’s fandom? A: “I enjoy it. I enjoy it because
more and more people enjoy my product. I need to say thank you [to] everyone.
Help me big or a little bit – I thank you.”

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ChuckMcM
Given his relative success (the article states its a multi-million dollar
business) running the outgassing from the plant through a water bath should be
pretty straightforward. Basically blowing the air through pipes which bubble
it underwater. The water runoff would then have the pepper oils in it.

Next up Sirachi Spicey Hot Bottled Water!

~~~
dubfan
Wouldn't you need to add some sort of detergent to get the non-polar oils to
dissolve in water? Disposing of that mixture could be tricky.

~~~
jlgreco
Wouldn't just regular old soap do it? Soapy water mixed with pepper shouldn't
be too nasty, but then again, California....

~~~
sliverstorm
You want to dispose of _soapy water!?!_ What are you, some kind of
environmental terrorist? Get a hazmat team in here, STAT!

\-- California

~~~
sjwright
Soapy water contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause
cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

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rayiner
Californian NIMBY-ness strikes again.

> a request from the southern California city of Irwindale to close the hot
> sauce’s factory because of complaints over smell from neighbors.

~~~
guyzero
In fairness to the NIMBYs, the factory has grown immensely in the last few
years and the "smell" is aerosolized peppers, basically pepper spray.

To quote the LA Times: "...the hot sauce’s production facilities are,
residents are complaining of burning eyes, irritated throats and headaches
caused by a powerful, painful odor that the city says appears to be emanating
from the factory during production."

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tedunangst
In fairness to the factory, every resident everywhere to ever live near
anything they didn't like, from power lines to roller skating rinks, has
developed burning eyes, irritated throats and headaches. It could be true, but
half the time people don't even realize they have symptoms until a
"spokesperson for the community" reaches out and informs them of the terrible
conditions they're living in.

~~~
Sheepshow
My intuition tells me there exists a more causal link between airborne chili
and jalepeno peppers and burning eyes than exists between a roller skating
rink and burning eyes.

Yes, people actually do get watery eyes from cutting onions. It's not just
that they are sad and blaming it on the onions out of shame.

~~~
harryh
At what part per million do burning eyes actually happen?

At what part per million does the factory actually affect the surrounding
atmosphere?

Without any idea at all about these numbers your intuition is worthless.

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imethan
I think being transported to the International Spaaaaaace Station [1] is one
of the highest honors a commercial object of any kind can receive. I remember
reading about it in this article [2].

Love the stuff, it's on the table in front of me now.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/n1Y7B.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/n1Y7B.jpg) [2]
[http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-21/sriracha-
hot...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-21/sriracha-hot-sauce-
catches-fire-with-only-one-rooster)

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NicoJuicy
Serious? I have like 2 of those bottles in my closet on 5 feet away from me.
Someone always brings it along from Brussels... (live in Belgium), so this is
quite awesome. Really didn't expect this :-D

Great hot spicey sauce!

~~~
fein
I've always wondered this: What is availability like for this stuff in foreign
countries? I can go to the store now (NE US) and find the original plus
another 4-5 knockoffs. Even cheap places like Save-A-Lot has bottles sometimes
for $3 or so.

~~~
ilamont
In recent visits to Asia, I haven't seen it in restaurants/food stalls in
Vietnam, Malaysia, or Taiwan. Haven't looked for it supermarkets.

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gyc
It's because it really is an American invention loosely based upon a Thai hot
sauce.

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murtza
Previous to the past couple of months, I had never seen any interviews with
the founder of Sriracha. The Google Trends data also shows a big increase for
searches on his company, Huy Fong Foods.

[http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Huy+Fong+Foods#q=Huy%...](http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Huy+Fong+Foods#q=Huy%20Fong%20Foods&cmpt=q)

Aside from increasing awareness about his product, why do you think he started
doing interviews?

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potatolicious
This may be a legitimate grassroots social media phenomenon - the sort that
big multinationals try to create but fail at.

Sriracha has obviously been a mainstay at Asian restaurants for years. But
like bacon, it didn't become A Thing until Digg/Reddit/the greater internet
subculture rolled around.

Folks like the Oatmeal started writing digital love letters to the sauce[1],
which helped boost its mythical status amongst the Reddit crowd.

I'm guessing he started doing interviews when people actually started wanting
to interview him. Prior to the internet's obsession with sriracha it was just
an easily-overloooked condiment associated with Asian food.

[1]
[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sriracha](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sriracha)

~~~
JoblessWonder
Before Digg/Reddit/The Internet every college kid in California was obsessed
with it. I still an old roommate who travels around the world with her own
little bottle in case she can't find it locally.

I remember an article from around 2009 where he talks about the drunken
voicemails he received. It was in the NY Times so it isn't like they have been
hiding.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/dining/20united.html?_r=3&](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/dining/20united.html?_r=3&)

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robomartin
Hot peppers can be deadly to people who are not used to spicy food. I bought a
few raw habañeros a few weeks ago. I have cooked with jalapeño and serrano's
but never habañero. Wow! Just a thin slice was hot beyond description. My wife
is hyper-sensitive to spicy food. I was so certain these things were dangerous
to her that I threw them away after using a couple to cook with. Here it is in
numbers [0].

I can see the potential for fumes from the manufacture of hot sauces being
irritating a lot of people. Sriracha isn't particularly hot. If you really
want to try hot buy a bottle of Dave's Insanity. BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU DO.
They ask that you use it one drop at a time. Believe me, that is good advice.

Those not into hot sauces don't believe that these sauces actually have taste.
And sauces such as Dave's and Sriracha taste really good. There are many
sauces that just burn. I don't know many hot sauce afficionado's who enjoy
sauces devoid of taste.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale)

~~~
ismarc
Peppers are particularly difficult to cook with. Their oils are what is spicy,
so you get variations based on growing conditions as well as how you prepare
it. To reduce spiciness, remove all seeds, rinse with cold water and put it in
a cold salt water bath for a couple of hours. Not enough to change the flavor,
but just until you start to see the oils collect on the surface. This only
works with raw peppers. If you then lightly sear the outside, you can get more
of the flavor without the spiciness getting into the rest of the food as much.
With the right sized pieces, you can then pull out the spicy chunks and still
have the nice flavor.

~~~
darkarmani
> To reduce spiciness, remove all seeds, rinse with cold water and put it in a
> cold salt water bath for a couple of hours.

This is popular opinion, but I've also heard from cooks that the seeds don't
contain much spiciness in them, but the pulp around them does. Could it be
that the outsides of the seeds are covered in oil and the insides are actually
neutral?

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dnautics
so, nobody asked, because they _assumed_ it was a trade secret? Hilarious.

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MrMeker
This would be a great place to bootstrap a startup. Cheap rent, this sauce is
great on ramen, and the smell would make it so only the most dedicated co-
founders who really love their product can stand to work on it. Almost zero
distractions because no one would come to visit. It would also help with the
'elevator pitch' although you would have to get your timing down to sub-floor
latency because everyone is certain to leave at the next stop.

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NDizzle
You know how the Soylent guy wants to have tap water and tap soylent in homes
of the future?

In my humble opinion, I think we need tap sriracha in homes of today! Down
with soylent!

~~~
JshWright
Alternatively you could combine the two. Some sriracha might make make soylent
a bit more palatable...

(This comment is intended as humor... I have never tried soylent)

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mattmaroon
I would have asked why they need to put preservatives in a chili sauce. Most
have none and yet can sit on a table for years.

~~~
aeflash
A lot of hot sauces have vinegar as a core ingredient, which acts as a
preservative.

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staunch
I buy it for like $2.50 retail, so that's kind of awesome.

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mmuro
What I find most interesting about this company is that he's never advertised.
He started selling it locally to cooks and it spread by word of mouth.

~~~
grinich
Or taste in mouth, I suppose.

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nsxwolf
The smell they're complaining about... does it smell like the product? Because
if it smells like the product, I'd love to live next door!

~~~
greyfade
You'd love to live in a Mace pepper spray cloud?

~~~
krapp
With sriracha it's always worth the pain.

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garybizzle
If only he had followed it up with the recipe..

~~~
fein
It's primarily just chilis. From the bottle:

Chili, sugar, salt, garlic, distilled vinegar, potassium sorbate, sodium
bisulfite and xanthan gum.

Remove the last 3 ingredients then just shoot for texture. for any given
bottle, probably 75% chili, 10% vinegar, salt, sugar, garlic for the last 15%.

If you can match the consistency, you can probably match the flavor. You just
need a line on fresh California Red Jalepenos.

I'd probably throw out the salt and just go for MSG.

~~~
kyleblarson
Your macbook air is just plastic, metal, and some silicone. Just throw a
couple of those together too while you're at it.

~~~
deaconblues
I'll go out on a limb and say that cooking is a tad easier and more accessible
than building a MacBook Air.

~~~
brandan
i disagree. to create tasty hot sauce, one must first create the universe.

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lnanek2
Hmm, impressively humble and forthright. As the Germans would say, I have
nothing to complain about.

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brosco45
No need for sales nor marketing!

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gopalv
So it's popularity has a lot to do with the 2$ a bottle price?

Sure, it tastes good but can we track down a fair bit of the
popularity/availability on shelves to the cost factor?

~~~
Raphmedia
It's cheap, so a lot of students tried it. They loved it, told their friends,
told their parents.

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notdrunkatall
I remember when I had this in Vietnam for the first time four years ago - I
was blown away. I wondered why it hadn't been sold in the USA, why I'd never
heard of it, and lo and behold, the very next year, it started showing up in
various places.

~~~
omaranto
Is "four years ago" a typo? Huy Fong Foods, maker of the most popular brand of
Sriracha in the US has been in business since the eighties.

~~~
notdrunkatall
No, you just suck at reading comprehension.

