By James Nash, Bloomberg News
IRWINDALE, Calif. — On days when thousands of jalapeno peppers are ground to make the hot, tangy sauce favored by chefs nationwide, a fine red powder coats Dena Zepeda’s silver Nissan and, when she’s outside, collects in her ears.
Sriracha chili sauce bottles are produced at the Huy Fong Foods factory in Irwindale, Calif. (Nick Ut – AP)
Zepeda, 57, of Irwindale, said that in August, glands between her jaw and her ears began to swell and hurt. It wasn’t hard to draw a connection to Huy Fong Foods, which turns peppers and garlic into its top-selling Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce less than 500 feet (150 meters) from her home.
A judge’s order to cease operations causing odors at the plant threatens to push the closely held company out of business, according to Chief Executive Officer David Tran. The company is part of the $1 billion annual hot-sauce industry, led by Tabasco bottler McIlhenny and Frank’s RedHot maker Reckitt Benckiser, according to market-research firm IBISWorld. Closing the plant would cost Huy Fong 200,000 bottles a day of the sauce, the bulk of its production.
“My four sons all like sriracha,” said Zepeda, who has lived in Irwindale for 40 years and petitioned her Los Angeles suburb to sue Huy Fong. “They tell me, ‘Mom, what are you doing to them?’ I tell them, ‘It’s not about what I’m doing to them, it’s about what they’re doing to me.’ “
Neighbors of Huy Fong’s 628,000-square-foot plant began complaining a few months ago about pungent odors accompanied by stinging eyes, aggravated asthma symptoms and even nosebleeds, City Attorney Fred Galante said in an interview. The city traced the smell to Huy Fong’s pepper- grinding, which typically takes place September to November, Galante said.
Irwindale, a city of 1,500 people about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, sued Huy Fong on Oct. 21, demanding that it shut down the plant until the odor problem was fixed. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert O’Brien on Nov. 26 ordered Huy Fong to make the changes.
While acknowledging “a lack of credible evidence” linking the health complaints to plant emissions, the odors “appear as extremely annoying, irritating and offensive to the senses warranting consideration as a public nuisance,” O’Brien said in a preliminary injunction.
Tran, 69, and other company officials declined to be interviewed. A security guard at the plant gave out a statement from Tran saying Irwindale had “acted severely toward us without a real investigation.”
After some complaints compared the odor to capsaicin, an ingredient in pepper spray, the company hung a pair of banners in front of its plant: “No Tear Gas Made Here.”
Tran, a Vietnamese who immigrated to the U.S. in 1979, named the company for the ship that carried him. The sauce’s bottle is decorated with a rooster, the symbol of Tran’s birth year. The company expanded into its Irwindale plant from nearby Rosemead as its popularity grew.
Read the full story by James Nash from Bloomberg News.
