Months without their cherished rooster-brand sriracha? Can spicy-food addicts survive?

It looks like it'll be months before Huy Fong Foods resumes providing hot-sauce-starved gastronomes with its "most popular hot sauce."

by Ken

It figures it would be the doing of some California buttinskies, who don't know what it means to mind their own beeswax. As a result, Huy Fong Foods has been forced to shut down production of its "most popular hot sauce," the sriracha in the clear plastic squeeze bottle with the rooster logo and green cap. Shock waves are rolling through hot-food aficionados from coast to coast, with early reports of sriracha-deprived users jonesing.

And in case you thought the hot-sauce junkies could do an end-around by snagging one of the company's other products, a chili-garlic or oelek-sambal sauce, no such luck -- the whole shebang has been shut down. I don't want to suggest that it's produced exactly panic in the streets, but there are folks taking the cutoff hard. DNAinfo New York's Heidi Patalano reports ("NYC's Restaurants Sweating Sriracha Hot Sauce Shortage"):

The news of a shortage of Huy Fong Foods "rooster" Sriracha sauce filled The Windsor's executive chef Kristine Mana-ay with panic.

“One of my friends told me about it and I was like, ‘Oh no! Why? Oh my God! I'm gonna die!’” said Mana-ay, who won the New York City Wingfest in October 2013 for her Sriracha-Honey wings and goes through two dozen 28-ounce bottles of the sweet-hot stuff every week.

Forbes's Rosa Trieu explains the situation ("Popular Sriracha Hot Sauce Maker Ordered To Halt Production"):

Huy Fong Foods, maker of the popular Sriracha hot sauce, has been ordered by California regulators to cease shipment to stores for 30 days.

Food suppliers will not be able to restock Huy Fong Food’s three sauces, Sriracha, Chili Garlic and Sambal Oelek until mid-January.

The hold is needed to “ensure an effective treatment of microorganisms present in the product,” health department spokeswoman Anita Gore told the Associated Press on Wednesday. The factory has been in national media headlines in recent weeks because it’s being sued by the suburban city of Irwindale after residents complained of suffering from heartburn, asthma and nosebleeds due to the peppery fumes that are emitted from the factory.

Though the chili sauce giant was not forced to shut down, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge said the plant must immediately stop any odor-causing productions until air experts can identify and mitigate the smell.

Huy Fong Foods has seen a 20% increase in revenue nearly every year since its founding in 1980. Its sauces were manufactured in Rosemead for 30 years before it relocated to Irwindale three years ago.

David Tran, owner of Huy Fong Foods, said the city of Irwindale offered a loan with “irresistible” terms of only paying interest for 10 years, with a balloon payment at the end.

Huy Fong took the loan and contributed $250,000 to the city each year as part of the deal, Tran said in statements released to the Los Angeles Times. The company built a $40-million factory that at full capacity could generate about $300 million a year in sales.

But once odor complaints about the company came in, Tran felt the city of Irwindale acted severely toward it without a real investigation into the matter. The company then began borrowing from East West Bank with less favorable terms to pay off the loans from Irwindale.

The family-run company saw $60 million in revenue in 2012. Tran began producing and selling his first chili sauce in his home country of Vietnam before immigrating to the United States in 1980. Tran’s son, born William Tran, is the company’s president. His daughter, Yassie Tran-Holliday is vice-president.

"In the meantime," DNAinfo's Heidi Patalano reports, "Sriracha-addicted restaurants and stores in the city are doing everything possible to weather the shutdown."

“We’ve stocked up since a couple of weeks ago, when we got word of a possible impending shortage,” said Jennifer Saesue, the general manager of OBAO Hell's Kitchen. “Luckily, at this point, we do not need to alter any of our dishes.”

OBAO has several special dishes that feature the spicy, smoky red sauce, but largely serves it as a condiment on the side.

Saesue said that her restaurant has enough of the Sriracha sauce to last three months — longer than the shipping freeze is expected to last.

Of course one company's crisis is other companies' opportunity.

"Other Sriracha producers — including one based here in New York City — are taking advantage of the Huy Fong Foods outage to boost their own popularity.

“You don’t wish this on anyone and I think that [Huy Fong Foods founder David Tran] is in a very difficult position right now. But certainly it’s opened doors for us and we expect that to continue,” Lisa Kartzman, spokeswoman for Chelsea-based Roland Foods, which makes its own version of the sauce.

Kartzman's company, which provides hundreds of products to local grocery stores, has been advertising its Sriracha sauce more heavily in the last few weeks.

“We’re going out and reminding our customers that we’ve got Sriracha sauce, that if they were buying that particular brand, we’re happy to step in as a supplier of Sriracha for them,” she said.

Even the rooster-adorned squeeze bottle hasn't exactly disappeared:

Distributors of Huy Fong Food’s Sriracha have assured local clients that they have enough of the green-capped "rooster sauce" to last through the shipping freeze, but distributors have been urging their customers to stock up early, just in case.

“[My purveyor] said they should be OK for a couple of months, but they said ‘You should start stocking it up at the restaurant.’ I think I’m going to do that,” said The Windsor's Mana-ay.

“Even before it was on the menu, I’d have it on hand in the restaurant because everybody loves it,” she said. If she does eventually run out, Mana-ay said she will begin making her own Sriracha.

For the record, "Huy Fong Foods did not respond to requests for comment."

#