By Mick Vann, Austin Chronicle
Huy Fong
Ruling the Roost
Bottles of Sriracha on the shelves of a supermarket. (ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
It’s August, season of the Southern California red jalapeño harvest, and chile-grinding time has come again to Irwindale’s Huy Fong Foods. They produce the iconic rooster-branded Sriracha sauce with the red bottle and the green cap, named Bon Appétit’s “Ingredient of the Year” in 2010. The nasal-sensitive residents will soon find out if the $600,000 air scrubbers that owner David Tran installed are performing their function.
The fierce hubbub started last fall, during last year’s chile processing, when the city of Irwindale sued Tran’s company to get him to remedy the problem. The irony, of course, is that Irwindale had gone to great lengths to get Huy Fong to build their new processing facility there the previous year. City Attorney Fred Galante claimed that a “strong, offensive chili (sic) odor … requires residents to move outdoor activities indoors and even to vacate their residences temporarily.” He called it a public health issue that required action, even if only a few residents had complained.
The battle waged through the fall of 2013. City consultants recommended an expensive air-purifying system, which Tran refused to install. Tran shot back by hanging a huge banner reading “No Tear Gas Made Here.” Inspectors entered the fray and found no odors (although they tested when no chiles were being ground). City staff lawyers determined that jalapeño peppers weren’t listed as legal airborne contaminants, so laws might have to be altered before the city could clamp down. The controversy raged on, and the courts further delayed action.
Denton, Texas, city council member Kevin Roden saw an opportunity. He petitioned Huy Fong to move to Little D, claiming that they had cheap land, shovel-ready sites far away from residents, cheap electricity, a fast-growing urban farm district, a central national shipping location, and “tons of college students seemingly willing to work for a daily supply of free Sriracha.” Two dozen other cities around the country jumped on the bandwagon, all of which played perfectly into owner Tran’s hand. California Governor Jerry Brown became concerned, worried about losing jobs, fresh chile sales, and taxes from a production run of an estimated 25 million bottles last year alone. He brokered a deal between Irwindale and Tran in April, calming the fuss. It was a win-win for Tran: sales skyrocketed when zealots started hoarding stockpiles of sauce, and Huy Fong got untold millions worth of free publicity. Tran played Irwindale like a Stradivarius.
Read the full article by Mick Vann from Austin Chronicle.
