Sriracha Sauce
How Hot do you like it??
Mother’s Day found me watching the documentary Sriracha by film maker Griffin Hammond. An odd choice for Mother’s Day, I’m sure but I do have an inordinate love of hot peppers. This intriguing movie was funded through Kickstarter by Sriracha lovers and the closing credits is a scroll through the entire alphabet listing the name of anyone who was a supporter.
After viewing Hammond’s movie, I’ve become more of a Sriracha fan than ever. Hammond perfectly illustrates how innovation and hard work combine to overcome adversity. David Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant who arrived to the U.S. following the Vietnamese War penniless ,
created the most popular Sriracha Sauce on the market by adapting a spicy, hot pepper based sauce from Thailand. Tran arrived in the U.S with 3,317 immigrants on a freighter named Huy Fong in December of 1978 and named his company for this freighter. Tran introduced his Sriracha sauce to the U.S. in the 1980s and his family now runs a multimillion dollar business that has never advertised. WOW!
According to Wikipedia – Sriracha is a type of hot sauce or chili sauce made from a paste of chili peppers, distilled vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt. It is named after the coastal city of Si Racha, in Chonburi Province of eastern Thailand, where it was possibly first produced for dishes served at local seafood restaurants.
By word of mouth, Tran’s fiery, flavorful sauce quickly caught on.
I first stumbled upon Sriracha at Rabun Gap Nacoochee School where it was a staple on the condiment shelf for the many Asian students attending this fine college preparatory school in Rabun Gap, GA.
I first stumbled upon Sriracha at Rabun Gap Nacoochee School where it was a staple on the condiment shelf for the many Asian students attending this fine college preparatory school in Rabun Gap, GA.
Today, Tran has a huge fan base that I can only compare to Star Trek fans. Buzz for the product, from chugging Sriracha from the bottle to dressing up as peppers to cookbooks written exclusively for the condiment have spread the word worldwide.
Beginning in Los Angeles in a small factory in Chinatown, Tran has now moved his manufacturing operation into a new 650,000 sq foot facility in Irwindale, CA. His company now sells more than $60 million of Sriracha sauce a year and I’m proud to say there is always a bottle on my shelf.