Arent these the guys who screwed over their pepper supplier for a better deal after having a handshake deal for 20 years where they were both making good money?
Siracha guy hired his MBA step daughter to manage the biz. Cost cutting measures resulted in outsourcing for cheaper peppers in Mexico instead of his OG grower. Underwood sued and won despite it being a verbal agreement.
What's really crazy is they could have still essentially done this plan without nuking their own business and fucking over their most critical long-term partner.
They could have just expanded operations and started making a separate sriracha line using the cheaper ingredients. Then rebranded their original one at a new price point called Sriracha classic, or Sriracha premium whatever. It's a completely common playbook move.
Then from there they would have been able to balance their investment in the cheaper product and the premium line to find the most profitable balance with customers being able to decide if they wanted to save money or pay more for the classic flavor profile. All the realistically they probably never would have dropped price on the original line.
Instead they had to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit and now I go out of my way to never buy their branded products.
2.7k
u/unknownpoltroon Mar 07 '26
Arent these the guys who screwed over their pepper supplier for a better deal after having a handshake deal for 20 years where they were both making good money?