Follow our The Best Idea Yet, our 2nd podcast series, to get episodes like this every week:https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/ Chances are you’ve got a bottle of Sriracha chilling in your fridge right now, but have no idea who invented it — and the spicy story of how he did it. Entrepreneur David Tran fled Vietnam in the late 70s, smuggling gold bars into the US to start his venture - selling hot sauce out of a van. Little did he know his thick, spicy red jalapeño concoction would make him the world’s first hot sauce billionaire… without ever spending a single dollar on advertising (FYI: Kraft dropped $750M on marketing alone in 2023). For over 40 years, David’s stayed laser-focused on making “a rich man’s sauce at a poor man’s price.” But when massive pepper shortages threatened the entire business, he faced a choice more painful than Tabasco on a paper cut. Find out how David puts “Co’s before Pro’s” (customers before profits)...and why Sriracha is the best idea yet.Spotify Poll:Best Dish to Spice Up With Sriracha?Pho, Scrambled Eggs, Fried Rice, Burritos, Pizza, Ice Cream, Sriracha… on SrirachaGET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the origin story of Sriracha?
This is Nick. This is Jack. And today's pod is the best idea yet. That's right. We got a bonus treat for you right before Thanksgiving. And that bonus treat is the best idea yet. It's our weekly show that we launched, what, like a month ago, Jack? We're like six episodes into this thing. The untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with.
So besties, here's what Jack and I are thinking. Since you're either traveling, digesting, or stuck in 12 hours of traffic this week, we wanted to keep you company with our latest deep dive series, our latest deep dive episode. And that's a 45-minute deep dive on the wild story behind Sriracha hot sauce.
And not just Sriracha, also the incredible refugee who became the first hot sauce billionaire making Sriracha, Sriracha. David Tran, he's a hero. So yetis, tell this Sriracha story over the weekend and you will be the most interesting person at the Thanksgiving table. And then follow The Best Idea Yet, our separate podcast series to hear stories like this every single week.
We dropped the link in the episode description so you can follow the show and listen every Tuesday. Don't forget to leave five stars because that's how we grow on the pod platform. So Jack, let's whip it up. Here it is, besties. The best idea yet. Sriracha. Sriracha.
It's 2011. Nick, you and I are roommates living in our shared apartment in the East Village of New York.
In a tiny four-bedroom apartment up a four-floor walk-up above the beauty bar where you could literally hear people making drinks at three in the morning. You could even hear the L train from that apartment, remember, man? The next Brooklyn-bound L train. We're arriving. Four.
Okay, but my favorite part about the apartment was every Sunday night, without fail, all four of us would get together and we would cook our family meal. My contribution to that apartment was that I would always pair the meal with a movie. Yes, it was a wonderful combination. And then you had some specialties, Jack. You did an eggplant parm, you did chicken parm, you did a lot of parm deviations.
But the surprise about that apartment, Jack, was that there were technically four roommates, but we always said that we were really five, right? Ah. Because there was one more individual in our tiny East Village apartment, and they weren't paying rent. I have to give you all the credit, actually. Yeah. You introduced to us the fifth member of the team. It was a product. It was bright red.
It had a cult following, and it ranks at around 2,200 on the Scoville scale. I think we're talking about sriracha. Sriracha. Rooster sauce. LA ketchup, baby. A half-used bottle is probably sitting in the little shelf on the door of your fridge right now. I mean, sriracha was one of the first alternative condiments.
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Chapter 2: Who is David Tran and what challenges did he face?
At night, he can hear the bombs and the gunfire, but honestly, they seem pretty far away. And by day, he gets to visit the markets to buy ingredients for the meals that he's serving. And those Saigon markets, they are bursting with aromas that, frankly, we could probably smell from this podcast studio. Jack, can I interest you in a little cilantro, maybe some clove, a little cinnamon?
Maybe a bit of star anise, Nick? Yeah, it's like the whole McCormick spice cabinet, Jack. David serves as an army cook for five years, but then on April 30th, 1975, Saigon falls to the North Vietnamese army, and suddenly the war is over. The U.S.-backed capitalists in the South have lost. Now this sets a whole bunch of changes in motion.
The communist government takes over, Saigon gets renamed to Ho Chi Minh City, and obviously people have big feelings about all of this. But for David, he's just relieved the war is over. Five years of army life have left him basically broke.
He's gotten married to a nurse during the war, and they have a baby on the way, which is amazing, but there's a lot of pressure for him to now support his growing family. Oh yeah. Happily, David stayed close to his older brother, the same one he followed to Saigon as a teenager to work in the chemical store. This brother owns some farmland just northeast of the city, and guess what he grows there?
Alfalfa. Tons of alfalfa. No, it's got to be chili peppers, right? It's chili peppers. It's chili peppers. David helps his brother farm the chilies and bring the crops to the market. But soon, they discover a problem most farmers face on the regular, market volatility. Market volatilities. Yetis, during harvest season, your crop is everywhere and the price is super low.
During scarce times, the price might be high, but you just don't have enough product. And it's exactly this situation that devastated American farms during the Great Depression. And it's why the U.S. government has been paying farm subsidies to farmers since 1933. David and his brother don't have the option of subsidies, but they do have a different secret weapon. Interesting.
Thanks to their time working in chemical retail, David knows how to use a couple basic food preservatives. Yes. Which means he can take their chilies and turn them into a shelf-stable, long-lasting sauce. It's like that scene in every movie, Jack, where like some random character's got a random town that suddenly saves the end of the day. Like, I think that's half the characters in Goonies.
Yeah, they get past the booby traps because the girl can play the organ.
Suddenly, David and his brother are no longer in the chili business. They're in the chili sauce business. It's a Tuong Oat startup, which actually means chili sauce in Vietnamese. But they don't have the means for fresh packaging. The business is so small, so young, so bare bones that they repurpose Gerber baby food jars left behind by American soldiers.
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Chapter 3: How did David Tran turn Sriracha into a billion-dollar brand?
So he gets to work creating a product that will change the foodie landscape forever. David starts with fresh jalapeno chili peppers, perfectly red, perfectly ripe. Back in his home country, these would have been Thai or Vietnamese chilies. But in Southern California, jalapenos are where it's at. And now, yetis, we know what you're thinking here. Uh, but jalapenos are green, right?
And you know what? You're right. These are actually the same plants. They're just left on the vine a little bit longer. And that deepens the flavor and turns the peppers a fire engine red. David ferments these peppers raw, which keeps the color bright. Then he adds sugar, salt, garlic powder, and vinegar.
He bottles them fresh and adds a touch or two of preservatives, plus a little xanthan gum to give it thickness. And once he nails his recipe, David works fast to get his business up and running. And by fast, I mean one month. One month. Are you kidding? This guy's in lean startup mode before the lean startup is even a thing. It Yeah, he's doing a lean startup before Andreessen met Horwitz.
At first, he registers his business to the house he and his family are renting until the city of Los Angeles helpfully points out they're not zoned for commercial use. So David purchases a smallish production facility, a 2,500 square foot building in Chinatown. And if you're wondering how he swung such a big purchase so quickly, David's already way ahead of you. Yet this is where things get wild.
Because remember that gold he was keeping in those milk cans that we told you about? Well, something happens between January 1980 when he lands in Los Angeles and February when he registers his new business. The price of gold almost triples. Cha-ching! From under $300 an ounce to $830 an ounce. Cha-ching!
So David is able to sell enough gold right at the high to pay for his first hot sauce factory. Smuggle low, sell high. Works every time. He decides to name his business after the freighter that carried him out of Vietnam, Huy Phong. Huy Phong. Yetis, the world's most disruptive hot sauce, is named after a refugee ship. We did say it means gathering prosperity. We did.
Which is what every business owner hopes for, and which David seems to be finding here in the U.S. Now, Jack, I gotta ask, because everything seems to be coming together right now. You got the sauce, you got the recipe, you got the factory, you got the name. What? What about the logo? For the logo, he turns to his zodiac sign, the rooster.
He includes writing around it that incorporates Chinese, Vietnamese, and English, which is perfect for this market of LA in the 1980s, where all these languages are constantly crashing into one another. And the next thing he does, Nick, he buys a navy blue Chevy van. Nice. This is the logistics department. He has his business name and that sweet rooster logo painted on the side of the van.
We got a picture right here. Take a look. So, Jack, I'm looking at this picture right now, all right? He's smiling. He's pointing to the van. He's full of pride. He's walking with confidence. It's all right there, man. This man is an entrepreneur, baby. Oh, yeah, and he's feeling it. It's 1980. This is a huge year for them, Jack. If this was a movie, this would be our montage moment.
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Chapter 4: What unique business strategies did David implement?
In 2007, California is hit by a scorching drought that turns the state into a dust ball. Crops wither and die in the fields. It's heartbreaking for farmers. And Huy Fong's precious chili supply literally goes up in smoke.
So having that single supplier for the most critical ingredient, that means when something affects that supply chain, you don't really have anywhere else to turn if you're a Huy Fong Sriracha. Huy Fong put all its peppers in one basket. Yeah. So they run out of peppers with three months in the year remaining. It's a major issue. Restaurants all over the world are left without their Sriracha.
And it's an awkward conversation topic for everyone with one of those rooster tattoos too. But Nick, listen to how David handles this crisis. Instead of reaching for preserved peppers or substandard peppers from the supermarket, the Hui Fang team reaches out to its major buyers one by one, and they apologize for the shortage.
They don't blame anybody. They just say, I am so sorry that you don't have sriracha on your shelves this season.
Because the loyalty of their customers matters to them, and they show it. Pro move. And guess what? The customers, they return the loyalty right back. Huy Fong doesn't lose a single big customer during the shortage. They all patiently wait for next year's crop. I mean, Jack, sometimes it takes just one stumble like that to kill a business. The trust is gone.
Customers, they like find a replacement and never come back. But the way that David carries himself, that had a real impact. His proactive outreach, it arguably saved the business. Also, David learns from the mistake of that crisis. Yeah, good point. From this point on, Hui Fang adjusts their production. They set a monthly quota and every bottle of sauce produced is sold in advance.
By 2009, Bon Appetit named Sriracha one of its best foods of the year. Sriracha has become the celebrity of sauces. And as a flavor, Sriracha makes its way into everything from vodka to mayonnaise. And still, Hui Fong is more or less the only supplier making it. The next year, Hui Fong moves to a massive new $40 million manufacturing plant in Irwindale, California.
Jack, I'm going to have to ask you to sprinkle on some really delicious context to the size of this plant. Their new facility is the size of five Dodger stadiums. I like what you did there, man. By 2012, Hui Fong's annual sales crack $60 million. Sriracha has gone viral. David's bringing in red jalapenos 21 tons at a time. That's three African elephants worth of hot peppers.
Unsurprisingly, David starts fielding offers to sell the company. But David's not interested. He tells the LA Times in one interview, "'This company is like a loved one to me.'" like family. Why would I share my loved one with someone else? Well, you'd share it for money. Usually it's because of money. But all the respect to David, he refuses. Nice. Despite probably some massive offers.
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Chapter 5: How did David Tran's background influence his product?
And then there's Hui Fong's Chili Garlic. Yeah. The latter two products are used in cooking, actually, instead of as condiments. Now, even with the current product shortage, David Tran, he's doing just fine. He is still turning away offers to sell Huy Fong because he wants to leave it to his kids, William and Yassi, Huy Fong's president and vice president, respectively.
Though we've mostly focused on Huy Fong Sriracha's American journey, they're very much an international product. Good point, Jack. Around 2019, they even made inroads to Sriracha, Thailand, the birthplace of Sriracha. Speaking of which, Jack, Tanom Chaka Pak sold the recipe and the rights to her Sriracha Panik to a company called Thai Terrapose Foods back in 1984.
Today, they still make and export that sauce internationally, and you can buy it in the United States if you want, Jack. You just got to look for the golden yellow label. All right, here's a closer for you. Hit me, Jack. Sriracha has been to space.
Yes!
Apparently, taste perception is different in a zero-gravity environment, which makes tasting astronaut food kind of unpleasant. Okay.
So at the ISS, the International Space Station, they take aboard spicy condiments like hot sauce, wasabi, and sriracha to make that kind of dull food a little more enjoyable. But shipping any fluid to space is wildly expensive. That's a good point. 16 ounces of liquid can cost anywhere from $9,000 to $40,000. So sending a 28-ounce bottle of huifang, it's almost $16,000.
But Jack, can you really put a price on flavor? Sounds like he can. And that's why sriracha is the best idea yet. There it is. Yetis. That's the best idea yet. Jack, I've been working on this series. We are so proud of it. We could not wait to share this sample with you. Could we, Jack? So here's what you got to do. Here's what you got to do. We won't drop episodes on this feed all the time.
Good point. To get an episode every week, you have to click the link in the episode description and follow our second series, The Best Idea Yet. And you're going to be glad you did. Because, Jack, what are the other episodes we've done of this new series? The Happy Meal. The Birkenstock Sandal. Super Mario Brothers. The Jeep. The Jacuzzi. It's an incredible list.
You're going to love these stories. So go right now to follow The Best Idea Yet. Give it five stars and a review. And you can do that anywhere you get your podcasts. Follow the best idea yet by typing that in to whatever platform you listen to and then push follow or push subscribe, whatever it is. And then once you do, you can listen early and ad-free if you'd like by joining Wondery Plus.
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