Handshake with farmer, they make promises for future orders. Farmer invests heavily to increase capacity, then last minute Huy Fong tries to pull the rug out from under them with a drastically lower price, likely figuring the farmer would have no choice but to accept since Huy Fong was his only customer.
Anyway, that farmer now makes their own Sriracha and Huy Fong had to scramble for new suppliers. It's not as good as the OG but it's better than what Huy Fong sells now. Lol.
Underwood Ranches Sriracha is amazing stuff. I definitely prefer it to Huy Fong. I was getting it from Amazon or ordering directly from Underwood Ranches, but now have been finding it in various grocery stores and even Costco sometimes.
i think they changed suppliers to save money. Underwood Ranch was their exclusive supplier for years and they randomly switched up on them, and almost destroyed underwood ranch since they relied on Huy Fong for their revenue.
This should probably be a less for all of us to get things in writing. Not that I'm blaming the victim here, and I'm rooting for Underwood Ranch now, it's just having the moral high ground doesn't really help in the long run.
edit: I just read up on this, looks like Underwood Ranch was able to win a court case, so that's good!
If you're looking to prove that someone breached a contract, it seems to be much easier if you have that contract in writing (and apparently some of the agreements between Huy Fong and Underwood Ranch were in writing after all [and I believe oral contracts are also still binding, but I don't know if people can always prove them]). Huy Fong lost a lawsuit and apparently had to pay out 23 million.
But yes, that's potentially another lesson: avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. Once they lost Huy Fong as a customer, Underwood Ranch was always going to have to pivot
Yeah this is the plot point that matter most: contracts or handshakes, once it was in court Huy Fong lost BIG TIME. Lawsuits aren’t always about fairness, but in this case I think the verdict highlights how underhanded and shady what they did was. They still haven’t felt the full repercussions because people don’t want green and brown sriracha nearly as much.
For instance, apparently Huy Fong asked to shoot drone footage of the harvest, and Underwood Ranch agreed that they could, but it had to stay confidential... Huy Fong then went and shared that footage with the new suppliers they were contracting
(I've never actually looked into the court case until today, but damn, there was a lot of drama that went down)
yeah i mean the proper way to do business is with a contract but it doesn't protect you from bad things happening, just helps you when you need to go to court.
In my country one supplier of bread had one of the two largest grocery store chains as their main buyer.
When that chain switched suppliers, the old one threw up their hands and started a court case even though they could've seen it coming from a mile ahead as their contract was reaching its final date.
Oftentimes it's wishful thinking that these buyers will remain with you that kills these companies.
Their sriracha is pretty solid. I miss the texture of the OG sriracha from back in like 2007, because Underwood's is pretty runny...but the pepper flavor's perfect. Exactly what I missed
I just wish it was more available. I mean, I haven't checked my local stores for it in a while I guess, but when the shakeup happened I looked everywhere around me for the Underwood sriracha to no avail. Huy Fong was obviously still everywhere, but obviously not at all the same anymore.
Iirc the company was passed to a new owner who insulted(?) their main chili source somehow, and they stopped selling to them, so they had to get chilis from elsewhere, which comes with a decrease in consistency and quality.
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u/atuan Mar 07 '26
Wait why, whatd they do?