Sriracha lovers are still feeling the heat of the hot sauce shortage, which is now in its second year. Drought in Mexico has resulted in a scarcity of chili peppers – specifically red jalapeños, the raw material of sriracha – leading Huy Fong Foods, the California-based maker of the condiment, to scale back its production.

Last June, the company halted production of its Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, Chili Garlic and Sambal Oelek condiments due to severe weather conditions affecting the quality of chili peppers.  

“It is a challenging crop to grow,” says Stephanie Walker, a plant scientist at the New Mexico State University, who serves on the advisory board of the Chile Pepper Institute. “Jalapeños are really labor intensive, requiring people to de-stem them by hand before they go for processing.”

A vulnerable crop 
The special care the chilis require makes them more vulnerable to extreme weather conditions, such as the persistent drought in northern Mexico, fueled by the depleted water supply in the Colorado River.

“Normally, the pepper is grown by irrigation,” adds Paul Gepts, a University of California, Davis crop researcher. “But the water supply has been decreasing and if you don’t have a certain minimum amount of water to irrigate your crops unless there is rain, there won’t be a crop.”

Five species of the chili pepper, spread over the Americas, from Mexico to Bolivia, have the hotness required for the sriracha sauce. Some of these varieties are used for other hot sauces and Sriracha dupes.

But fans of the chili sauce can spot the difference and are staying loyal to the original.

“For sriracha, its particular flavor and quality dictate how you have to have jalapeños because of the unique flavor profile consumers love,” Walker says. “Those very pungent kinds of tangy, almost citrus notes of the chili.”

Phans 55, a Vietnamese restaurant in Orange County, California, has been running low on the limited sriracha supply for the past three months.

“Now it’s all gone,” explains Andre Nguyen, a server at the restaurant, adding that the sauce is essential for a variety of dishes, from pho to rice.

“The taste of sriracha is hard to mimic,” Nguyen states. “Everyone would prefer to have sriracha over another brand trying to copy it.”

Resellers on Amazon, eBay and Craigslist are pricing bottles of hot sauce for as high as US$120. 

A bleak future?
A representative for Huy Fong Foods said that while “limited production has recently resumed,” the company has no estimations of when supply will increase or when it will hit supermarket shelves again.

Moving the crop to an area that is less affected by extreme weather and breeding new varieties of chili that is tolerant to heat and drought could help avoid future shortages. Still, that is a longer-term solution to the problem hitting US shelves imminently.

“We’re going to see these disruptions more often because of climate change,” Gepts comments.