David Tran built Huy Fong Sriracha from a small immigrant food business into one of America’s most recognizable hot sauces. But behind every green-capped bottle was a farming partnership that lasted nearly 30 years—and its collapse changed the company.
A TASTE OF HOME IN CALIFORNIA
When David Tran fled Vietnam in 1978, he left aboard a freighter called the "Huy Fong".
After arriving in Los Angeles, Tran began making the garlic chili sauces he knew from Southeast Asia, using fresh California red jalapeños and selling his products to local restaurants and markets.
In 1980, he founded Huy Fong Foods, naming the company after the ship that had carried him out of Vietnam. His Sriracha took its name from Si Racha, the Thai coastal town associated with the sauce style.
What began largely within immigrant communities eventually traveled far beyond them. The familiar rooster bottle appeared in pho restaurants, American kitchens and college dorms, becoming a food icon without traditional advertising. But its success depended on something much less visible: peppers.
THE FARMER BEHIND THE SAUCE
Beginning in the late 1980s, California’s Underwood Ranches, led by Craig Underwood, began growing red jalapeños for Huy Fong. As demand for Sriracha increased, so did the partnership. For nearly three decades, Underwood supplied the peppers that gave the sauce its distinctive flavor and color.
It was an unusually close relationship. Underwood dedicated significant land and resources to Huy Fong’s needs, while Huy Fong became heavily dependent on the farm’s crop. Eventually, disagreements over their financial and business arrangements shattered that trust.
The dispute went to court. In 2019, a jury sided with Underwood Ranches on key claims, ultimately resulting in an award of more than $23 million.
The partnership was over.
WHEN SRIRACHA BECAME SCARCE
Huy Fong had to find new pepper suppliers. Later crop and supply problems contributed to production disruptions, and at times the famous bottles became difficult to find.
The shortages revealed something easily forgotten about global food brands: even an enormously recognizable product can depend on something as unpredictable as a crop—and on the relationships behind it. Huy Fong Sriracha survived and remains known around the world.
But behind that rooster bottle is a distinctly Migration Meals story.
A refugee carried a taste of Southeast Asia to California. An American farmer helped him turn it into an icon. And for nearly 30 years, their unlikely partnership helped put Sriracha on tables around the world.