Nows and Forevers

What happened to sriracha?

Wouldn’t you know that when I was getting low on my supply, that rooster-adorned bottle in my fridge, is when the shelves ran dry.
Again. There was a shortage in 2020 due to the pandemic. Now the shortage is back.

I’m not a sriracha addict. But I’ve enjoyed it ever since I saw it a Minnesota noodle bar and gave it a try, back in 2008. I took a mental note to try to find it when I got back to Queens, and I’ve rarely been without it ever since. I even had enough during the pandemic, because in my case, a little sriracha goes a long way.

It wasn’t until I needed it that I found out there was no sriracha to be found, at least not at a reasonable price. The Huy Fong brand, with its distinctive rooster smack dab in the middle of the bottle, runs about $20 where it had been under $5 last year. I like my sriracha, but not that much.
So when I was a Trader Joe’s today, I passed by its version on the shelf. And dropped it into my cart. What really could be the difference between Huy Fong’s and any others?

Turns out, a lot.

I ended up having a veggie dog or two for lunch, dolloping my sriracha along with the mustard. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t Huy Fong, either. That’s a disappointment for my taste buds. But it’s also very much a first-world problem. I can wait until Huy Fong Foods gets itself back to normal.