Sriracha sauce (Huy Fong Foods) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Tương Ớt Sriracha
A bottle of Huy Fong sriracha sauce (with trademarked rooster logo pixelated)
Heat	Medium
Scoville scale	1,000-2,500 SHU

Huy Fong's sriracha sauce ( Vietnamese: Tương Ớt Sriracha), also referred to as sriracha or rooster sauce for the rooster on its label, is a brand of sriracha, a chili sauce that originated in Thailand. The sauce is produced by Huy Fong Foods, a California manufacturer, and was created in 1980 by David Tran, a Chinese immigrant from Vietnam. Some cookbooks include recipes using it as their main condiment.

It can be recognized by its bright red color and its packaging: a clear plastic bottle with a green cap, text in Vietnamese, English, Chinese, and Spanish, and the rooster logo. David Tran was born in 1945, the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese zodiac. The green cap and rooster logo are trademarked, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office considers "sriracha" a generic term.

Preparation

The sauce's recipe has not changed significantly since 1983. The bottle lists the ingredients: "chili, sugar, salt, garlic, distilled vinegar, potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite and xanthan gum". Huy Fong Foods' chili sauces are made from fresh, red, jalapeño chili peppers and contain no added water or artificial colors. Garlic powder is used rather than fresh garlic. The company formerly used serrano chilis, but found them difficult to harvest. To keep the sauce hot, the company produces only up to a monthly pre-sold quota in order to use only peppers from known sources. The sauce is certified as kosher by the Rabbinical Council of California.

Production

The production of sriracha sauce begins with growing the chilis. The chilis were grown on Underwood Ranch until the two companies ended their relationship in 2016. David Tran, owner of Huy Fong Foods, contracted about 690 hectares (1,700 acres) of farmland that spreads from Ventura County to Kern County in California. In order to make sriracha, the chili peppers are planted in March.

Tran uses a particular type of machinery that reduces waste by mixing rocks, twigs, and unwanted/unusable chilis, back into the soil. The chilis are harvested in mid-July through October and are driven from the farm to the Huy Fong Foods processing facility in Irwindale.

Because Tran does not add food coloring to the sauce, each bottle varies in color. At the beginning of the harvest season, the chilis are greener and therefore, the sauce yields a more muted-red color. Later in the season, the sauce produced is bright red. After the chilis are harvested, they are washed, crushed, and mixed with the other ingredients including chili, sugar, salt, garlic, distilled vinegar, potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite as preservatives, and Xanthan gum. The sauce is loaded into drums and then distributed into bottles. All drums and bottles are manufactured on-site, to reduce waste and emissions.

Nutritional value

Serving size: 1 tsp, Calories: 5, Calories from fat: 0, Total fat: 0g, Sodium: 75 mg, Total carbohydrate: 1g, Sugars: 1g, Protein: 0g, Vitamin A: 0%, Vitamin C: 0%, Calcium: 0 Iron: 0

Scoville scale heat rating

Huy Fong Foods' sriracha sauce ranks in the 1,000–2,500 heat units range, above banana pepper and below Jalapeño pepper, on the Scoville scale used to measure the spicy heat of a chili pepper.

History

Sriracha by Huy Fong Foods

David Tran began making chili sauces in 1975 in his native Vietnam, where his brother grew chili peppers on a farm north of Saigon. In 1978, the new Communist Vietnamese government began to crack down on ethnic Chinese in south Vietnam. Tran and three thousand other refugees crowded onto the Taiwanese freighter Huey Fong, heading for Hong Kong. After a month-long standoff with the British authorities, its passengers disembarked on January 19, 1979.

Tran was granted asylum in the United States. He started Huy Fong Foods in 1980, naming the company after the refugee ship that brought him out of Vietnam. The sauce was initially supplied to Asian restaurants near his base in Chinatown, Los Angeles, but sales grew steadily by word of mouth.

In December 2009, Bon Appétit magazine named the sauce Ingredient of the Year for 2010.

In 2012, over 20 million bottles were sold. Huy Fong Foods says demand has outpaced supply since the company started making the sauce. The company does not advertise because advertising would widen that gap. Huy Fong has boosted production since 2013.

Sriracha sauce has grown from a cult taste to one of the food industry's most popular condiments. It infuses burgers, sushi, snacks, candy, beverages, and even health products. Tran said he was dissuaded from securing a trademark on the word sriracha since it is difficult to obtain one named after a real-life location. This has allowed others to develop their own versions, using the name. Some of the biggest corporations in the business, such as Heinz, Starbucks, Frito-Lay, Applebee's, P.F. Chang's, Pizza Hut, Subway, and Jack in the Box use the name without licensing it. In 2016, Lexus partnered with Huy Fong Foods to build a single promotional Sriracha IS sport sedan.

Documentary film

Filmmaker Griffin Hammond produced a 33-minute documentary about sriracha sauce. It was funded with the help of a Kickstarter campaign which raised $21,009—over four times the goal. The film was released online on December 11, 2013, in advance of submission to film festivals.