39: Sriracha Keeps Getting Sued & It's Really Funny

Hey guys, sriracha drama is pretty spicy (boo) lol and funny so here you go.

Transcript

So today, we're going to be talking about something spicy! the history of sriracha :) so you can stop booing actually because I know that joke was bad but also, this is going to be a really fun one I'm Reese, and this is Reese Grey Analyzes I'm so excited that you guys decided to Adventure with me today :) On Reese Grey Analyzes we look at creations & experiences in pop culture like art media music and even video games to explore exactly why we think the way we think question what we believe and learn something new! And we have another fun one today about Sriracha~ So I've been on that quest to figure out fun like Refugee business stories right and Sriracha is another company that came from a refugee from Vietnam so they're just killing it and so this is the story of David Tran so a little bit about David Tran's background David Tran the creator of sriracha never trademarked the word "Sriracha" so it has been used like again and again in pop culture for super weird things there was a collaboration there was a straight up collaboration of sriracha and Lexus like they have a Sriracha car Sriracha bottles and stuff around stickers everywhere and just Sriracha is a really trendy thing it's like a Halloween costume everybody loves Sriracha everybody loves Sriracha but no one knows how to say Sriracha so you know how Sriracha isn't trademark the main thing about that is that David Tran didn't want to go about all the legality of it cuz Sriracha is actually a town in Vietnam which is correctly pronounced see-ra-cha but the American pronunciation is sir-acha and he says that that either way is fine see-racha is just the way the city is pronounced or if you're my dad for some reason you say Sir Chacha so I'll be calling it Sriracha for this video but I might I might sneak in a Sir Chacha in there sometimes for for the fun and people love Sriracha so freaking much with all their heart that Hui Foods David Tran's company Huy Foods has never paid for advertising isn't that insane??? he's never paid for advertising so David Tran just basically goes off of Vibes and this gets him in trouble pretty much because because he does what he wants right and that's pretty good for a businessman but sometimes it's kind of bad hence why he has gotten sued multiple times and we're going to talk about the two juiciest times that Sriracha has gotten sued so buckle in for this wild ride he has to keep spending his money on legal fees and you know who also spends a lot of money well David Hammond who produced his first documentary on Sriracha so a good video to check out after this video would be David Hammond's like 30 minute YouTube documentary on Sriracha I'll link it in the description and it's super cute it's like about 10 years old but it's really cute and he made it from money from a Kickstarter so he wanted to raise five grand to make his little film cuz he's Indie filmmaker and he ended up raising $21,000 for his film which is so awesome and he ended up going to Thailand and everything to like research this sauce and actually in all of the stores that he saw they didn't have Huy Foods branded Sriracha they just had a bunch of different types of sriracha and so you might think like well like is this Sriracha any different and it totally is which we'll get into so let's start off talking a little bit about David and his background so as we know he's a Vietnamese Refugee and he founded Huy foods for his Sriracha company in 1980 but before fleeing Vietnam he actually made sauce he made hot sauce and his brother was a farmer and he would Farm the chilies and he would make the sauce and sell the sauce and part of the issue that he explains in the documentary is that since Vietnam was being taken over by a Communist Regime he wasn't allowed to own his business anymore so he had to flee and they got on a ship boarded for Hong Kong and they got stuck on the ship for literally a month because Hong Kong wouldn't let it Dock and another reason he wanted to flee Vietnam as well is because he's ethnically Chinese and they were persecuting ethnically Chinese people so he had to flee so they're stuck in the ocean for 30 days so they were finally allowed to disembark and then he was granted Asylum by the United States and it takes a plane over to the United States and he's able to start his Sriracha company in uh 1980 only 3 years after getting to the United States and like most Vietnamese refugees um they send them over to Southern California and so he started making his chilies in Los Angeles and he said they were inspired by like Thai Chili sauces and like Thai chili is is so good I love Thai Chili and so he ended up just selling it literally out of his van like just you know selling it to Independent shops in Chinatown and through Word of Mouth only he starts getting tons and tons of orders from local Asian shops around the area because everyone loves sriracha and so this is why David Tran says that he doesn't advertise because he said he had trouble keeping up in the first place with the demand so if he advertised it would just completely outpace his ability to make the sauce which is such a flex such an amazing incredible flex and I believe him this is not just a cheap business decision this is legitimately true because there have been multiple Sriracha shortages as well even just last year in 2023 there was a global Sriracha shortage and Sriracha bottles were going for $100 which I get I love Sriracha I have it on everything I like put on eggs and rice and soup so good so it's like why why do people love this sriracha sauce you know but it's actually really interesting because he uses these red jalapenos that are grown in California so it's actually California grown really high quality jalapenos that he makes these sauces out of and he was really set on like the quality of the peppers is what makes the sauce first fun fact of the day Sriracha saw their spiciness is not even measured by the Scoville heat scale because not only is it a hot sauce but it's also a flavoring founder David Tran he takes the flavoring so seriously and this is kind of where he gets into his trouble here legally so these farmers and stuff they have to sign NDA's about how this sauce is made when the peppers are picked and everything and he's killing it and he he has his Factory in Irwindale California and you know this isn't the spiciest sauce in the world but you could feel the spice in the air because of the quantity of sauce bottles that they're making so the city of Irwindale actually sued Huy Foods because the quality of their air was being affected by the Sriracha factory they said that the they could feel this spiciness in the air and it was affecting people's eyes and respiratory systems and they said that when they would walk outside their eyes would like water and it was just absolutely horrible and this city just wanted to move this Sriracha factory oh far away as they could and this can kind of be backed up by the documentary as well because David Hammond who made the documentary said that he could feel in his eyes and his and in his throat like this spiciness when he was inside the factory he said in other rooms it wasn't as bad but I can understand that during high production you can like feel that like in the air and so this being the spicy story that it is the media was all like okay guys stock up on your Sriracha the Huy Foods company might have to shut down for a while because they're dealing with this lawsuit and this caused a Sriracha shortage because of this lawsuit because people were afraid that they weren't going to be able to get their Sriracha so of course people like hoarded bottles and then there was a bunch of memes about it being like the end of the world because you know we couldn't get our Sriracha but then the dramatic twist the dramatic twist is that later that year so judge Robert O'Brian he was all like you guys are fine you guys are kind of fine like he ruled in favor par of the city he did declare that Huy Foods needed to cease any operations that could have been causing these noxious odors and he said that they should mitigate this but he didn't say that they needed to stop completely so it was kind of funny because the judge said that the spiciness of the air and stuff could be reasonably inferred like it's reasonably inferred that the air will be spicy around found a hot sauce factory and there was a lack of credible evidence of breathing problems because there was a lack of like medical records and stuff and so they were just able to keep making their hot sauce so the lawsuit ended up being dismissed in 2014 and the production just completely carried on as as planned but during the legal battles David Tran was like sure I'll like I'll move the company like that's fine because the Irwindale city council did vote that the Huy Foods company was a public nuisance to their city so then Texas was all like well we'll take you you want to come to Texas because the people from Texas came in toward the factory and they gave them incentives to move to Denton Texas but like he didn't even go like he just kept his Factory I know this probably a lot too to like uproot everything and like go to Texas so if I had a whole lawsuit dropped too I'd probably just stay I am I'm like I'm good so that one David trans public nuisance of a Sriracha factory you know he made it away from that one but this is lawsuit number two so we you know how we were talking about how David Tran was all like oh yeah like the quality of my Peppers that's what makes my sriracha sauce yes it's very very important to me well yes that was very important to him but apparently like Fair pay wasn't because he got in trouble because he was trying to underpay these farmers who had to handpick his peppers they did have machines but they couldn't get all the peppers and the machines had to have like a row um a clear row to like Drive the machine down so people had to pick the peppers first people had to pick the peppers and then it was just getting it was just getting too expensive for him so he decided to move companies that he got his peppers from because hey that's fair that's capitalism baby but not really because he was shady about it so there was a company called Underwood that used to provide Sriracha with its peppers and they claimed that David TR just like up and left without notice and he was just like no I don't want your peppers anymore but this Farm held like millions of peppers for Sriracha specifically and once you plant seeds and grow them you can't like ungrow them and what are you supposed to do with a bunch of peppers when they don't give you adequate notice so this lawsuit is linked in the description as well but so they had just tons of dollars worth of product that could not be sold to Sriracha anymore or anyone else because who wants that many pepper he counter sued Underwood and then said that so Sriracha was like no Underwood breached their contract because they concealed their motives because actually apparently they took their peppers and made their own sauce and he said that this was intentional misrepresentation of their motives and that Underwood was refusing to return $7 million of Huy's' equipment so Sriracha was all like you stole my idea my equipment and my Peppers that's what you did and then Underwood was like no you didn't want to buy our Peppers anymore so we had to make our own sauce and we're keeping your equipment so I have to bang my gavel and make the verdict so the verdict was that Underwood the company who sold them the peppers got awarded $23 million and this includes $13 million in Damages and then 10 million in punitive damages so that's $23 million total that Sriracha had to pay out then the jury was all like oh well Huy Fong, Huy Foods, the Sriracha company did actually overpay Underwood for their Peppers so then Underwood had to give Sriracha back their 1.3 million but honestly that's a huge net positive for the Underwood pepper people so that's crazy so instead of sriracha getting their peppers from like one Farm they're like outsourced to farms in California and Mexico and New Mexico as well so now they get their peppers from everywhere and some people claim that there's been a change in quality to the sauce but I still love it but people say that they notice it's changed but maybe my taste buds are just not as advanced and it might be really controversial of me to say this it may be much too controversial of me to say this but the green cap Sriracha the OG Huy foods from David Tran his Sriracha is the best Sriracha other Sriracha are trash I will I will just defend the OG Sriracha with all my heart so let me know if you think the sriracha sauce is different now but this region in general of like California Mexico New Mexico has suffered so many droughts that it's been a really really rough couple of years too for Sriracha so man but they're never going away I mean they don't have to advertise right like people love them so much that they'll just keep buying it but it's still kind of shady that Underwood ended up making their own like sriracha sauce but it it is like when life gives you lemons you know make lemonade like when life leaves you with millions of peppers make Sriracha I guess like what else were they supposed to do but um it does seem a little bit Shady huh but I think the funnest part is knowing that black market Sriracha when Sriracha like goes out of stock is just like a huge thing and people will pay hundreds of dollars for it that just that's fun to me it's just crazy how Sriracha is like this like cultural icon like this it it's such a cultural icon that the first documentary someone makes is on Sriracha you can get like shirts and stuff like with Sriracha bottles on them so many Sriracha stickers my friend has a Sriracha bottle laptop sticker phone cases and then there's also Sriracha flavored La chips too which are kind of mid but i' rather have soup anyway so and even like subway like you can get Sriracha on your sandwich at Subway and then Taco Bell and Pizza Hut as well they've had like Sriracha themed items because remember Sriracha the name isn't trademarked so we can be weird about it like having a 2016 Lexus Sriracha style so lots of drama and spice with sriracha and this was another fun one so I hope you guys like enjoyed this let me know if you guys have other like fun Refugee business stories I just like to like highlight the cool stuff that people have done during adversity and I love Sriracha it's just the every company has their drama and i' love to share it with you guys so thanks for adventuring with me today and as always love you guys bye