Dennis Romero
LA Weekly
December 11, 2013
For those that are NOT familiar with THE BEST HOT SAUCE ever made, here is the movie trailer to recently released documentary on the product that swept the internet, Sriracha hot sauce:
“Sriracha” documentary trailer from Griffin Hammond on Vimeo.
The factory that makes the original Sriracha hot sauce says it’s pausing all shipments for more than a month as a result of state regulations, a spokeswoman for Irwindale-based Huy Fong Foods told the Weekly.
See also: Sriracha Sauce Production to Continue Despite Judge’s Shutdown.
“There’s nothing wrong with our products,” she told us. “We’re just following federal and state regulations.”
The embattled Huy Fong Foods factory in Irwindale says it’s having to hold shipments of its beloved Sriracha, Chili Garlic and Sambal Oelek hot sauces for 30 days per government regulations.
We called the state Department of Public Health and spokesman Ron Owens several times to get some clarification about this but were told that he was busy on the phone.
The company has been battling the city of Irwindale, which unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit that attempted to get the operation to shut down after officials said they had received complaints about the smell of chili in the neighborhood.
A judge earlier this month ordered the factory to stop stinking up the place but stopped short of forcing a shutdown.
It’s a moot point for now, however, because the smell-causing chili-crushing season is over until next fall.
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| scriptingnews/Flickr |
Huy Fong Foods CEO David D. Tran said this is all over a real estate deal with the city that turned sour.
He says Irwindale actually wooed Huy Fong Foods to town a few years ago and provided a nice piece of land. The deal was that Huy Fong would pay $250,000 a year in interest, sort of like rent, and then pay off the parcel with a balloon payment at the end of the 10-year deal.
However, Huy Fong got a bank loan and decided to purchase the property early, thus depriving the city of millions via those annual payments.
[Update at 5:09 p.m.]: California Department of Health spokeswoman Anita Gore said in a statement sent to the Weekly that this kind of requirement — a 30-day hold on products that use means other than heat to kill microorganisms — has existed for years but that it was recently modified in a way that now applies specifically to Huy Fong’s hot sauces.
We can imagine that the acidity in Sriracha will kill all the little bugs that the state is worried about, but the regs say that a 30-day hold is required just to make sure that the stuff is safe before you get to squeeze the bottle.