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Production of a favorite sriracha has once again been halted. What is at risk when a brand becomes scarce?

Production of a favorite sriracha has once again been halted.  What is at risk when a brand becomes scarce?

 


Cost of life7:32 a.m.“It’s like gold” Why nothing can replace the rooster

When Taylie Nguyen's Vietnamese restaurant ran out of Huy Fong sriracha for its most popular soup, he had to find a substitute. And people noticed it immediately.

“We didn't get a lot of good feedback from customers because they said the taste was too different,” said Nguyen, manager of Golden Bell restaurants in Calgary. Cost of life.

“Customers would bring their own [Huy Fong] hot sauce.”

Huy Fong Srirach is one of the most popular hot sauces in North America. It was introduced to the United States in the 1980s by company owner David Tran and uses red jalapeno peppers. But the company has struggled to obtain those peppers in recent years following a fallout with its longtime supplier.

Since then, it has had to interrupt its production several times, notably recently in Maycreating a sauce shortage. And that kind of shortage can really test the power of a brand.

“On the one hand, real scarcity can reveal people's attachment to their brand and reveal a brand's iconic status,” said Yann Cornil, a researcher in food marketing and consumer behavior at the University of British Columbia.

“On the other hand…if consumers discover that other brands, perhaps cheaper brands, are just as good, they may no longer be loyal.”

Siriracha bottles in a cart.
Bottles of the popular sriracha hot sauce may be hard to find on store shelves this summer, after its producer had to suspend production due to a pepper shortage. (Nick Ut/Associated Press)

The power of a brand

Huy Fong sriracha has become an iconic product, known for its rooster logo and green lid. That puts the product in rarefied air, along with brands like Coca-Cola and Kraft Dinner. For some hot sauce fans, there's no substitute, other brands just don't cut it.

Nguyen says that during last spring's shortage, when sauce was hard to come by, she asked a customer to leave her restaurant when he discovered they had no sauce.

“The first thing he did was taste the hot sauce on the table, and he said, 'Do you have any real sriracha?' I was like, 'Oh, it's sriracha.' He said, 'No, the real one,'” Nguyen recalled.

Cornil says loyalty to a particular brand is built through consistency over time.

“It's the feeling of great familiarity that you get when you taste the product. And it brings back memories from the past that can spark those positive emotions that can be comforting,” Cornil said.

But for Huy Fong, who continues to struggle with supply, there is no simple solution. The company can't start using different types of peppers for its sriracha, for example, because a recipe change can be worse than a shortage, Cornils said.

He cites Coca-Cola which, in 1985,launched a reformulation of its main product. New Coke, as it was called, sparked protests and people demanding the return of the original Coca-Cola. Within months, Coca-Cola brought back the original recipe.

“You have to [do] everything to preserve the brand identity, the recipe, the ingredients,” Cornil said. “A change in the recipe could be very detrimental to the brand.”

A transparent bottle with a green spout that contains very little red sauce
Taylie Nguyen calls Huy Fong's sriracha “like gold.” (TJ Factory/CBC)

Still shortages

CBC contacted Huy Fong Foods to ask the reason for the hot sauce shortage and what it means for consumers, but the company declined to comment.

Linda Hua of Kien Fat Trading in Toronto has a long-standing relationship with Tran and Huy Fong hot sauce. His father got his first taste of it in the 1980s and began importing it to Canada for distribution soon after.

Today, Hua distributes 150,000 bottles of Sriracha every month. But with the shortage, she said, there has been a drop in demand.

“We’ve seen restaurants that have changed and haven’t come back,” Hua said.

She says she's confident Huy Fong hot sauce will be back in the fall, but if you're a big fan, don't wait. “Go get it now,” Hua said.

In the meantime, Nguyen of Golden Bell restaurant uses rooster-labeled sauce sparingly. The restaurant offers a sriracha substitute on the tables for customers who want to add it to their meal and uses Huy Fong hot sauce for its soup recipe.

If a customer specifically asks for Huy Fong sriracha, Nguyen will oblige, because she doesn't want more customers walking out. But until she knows there's more stock on the way, she says she'll save every drop.

“I almost see it as a precious thing,” Nguyen said. “It’s like gold.”

Sources

1/ https://Google.com/

2/ https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/brands-power-hot-sauce-1.7239926

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