Huy Fong Foods
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Hot sauce |
| Founded | 1980 in Chinatown, Los Angeles, California |
| Founder(s) | David Tran |
| Headquarters | Rosemead, California, United States |
| Key people | David Tran |
| Products | Asian-style hot sauce |
| Owner(s) | Tran family |
| Employees | 200 (2011) |
| Website | http://www.huyfong.com/ |
Huy Fong Foods (滙豐食品公司) is a hot sauce company based in Rosemead, California.[1] Beginning in 1980 on Spring Street in Los Angeles's Chinatown, with an initial investment of US$50,000 in family savings after being turned down by a bank for a US$200,000 loan, it has grown to become one of the leaders in the Asian hot sauce market, specially Sriracha sauce.
The sauce was developed by the company's founder, David Tran (Trần), an ethnic Chinese Vietnamese farmer (born c. 1945) who had grown chili peppers, produced, and sold chili sauce in Long Binh, a village just north of Saigon. He fled Vietnam in either 1977 or 1979 and arrived in the United States (first in Boston, then in Los Angeles) in the spring of 1980 as a part of the migration of the Vietnamese boat people following the Vietnam War. In the late 19th century, Tran's grandfather had moved the family from Chaozhou, Guangdong, China to Saigon, where they settled into the Chinese community.
The company is named for the old Taiwanese freighter that took Tran to Hong Kong in 1978 and its rooster logo comes from the fact that Tran was born in the Year of the Rooster. The bottles' trademark green top symbolizes the freshness of the chili used.
Huy Fong Foods is a family business, staffed by eight members of the family. William Tran (born c. 1976), David Tran's son, is the company's director of operations. The company has never advertised its products, relying instead on word of mouth, the phone number listed on its products, and its website.
The Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce recipe has not changed since 1983. It is currently Huy Fong Foods' best-known and best-selling item, easily recognized by its bright red color and its packaging: a clear plastic bottle with a green cap, text in four languages (Vietnamese, English, Chinese, Spanish) and the rooster logo.
In 1986 or 1987, Huy Fong Foods relocated to a 68,000-square-foot (6,300 m2) building in Rosemead, California. The company also purchased land near San Diego, California, on which it grows the chili peppers used for its products; it also purchases chilis grown in Oxnard and Somis, California, and places further north. Most of each year's chili mash is produced in just two months, during the autumn harvest. The sauces are produced on machinery that has been specially modified by Tran, who taught himself machining and welding skills. In 2001, the company was estimated to have sold 6,000 tons of chili products for approximately US$12 million. In 2007 it was estimated to have made US$3.2 million.[2]
Huy Fong Foods' chili sauces are made from red jalapeño chili peppers and contain no artificial ingredients. The company formerly used serrano chilis but found them difficult to harvest. All five sauces are manufactured in Rosemead, California. The company has warned customers about counterfeit versions of its sauces.[3]
In 2010, the company opened a new factory in Irwindale, California. It is 23 acres, with 26,000 square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of production space, and 480,000 square feet of warehouse [4]. The company now produces about 20 million bottles of sauce in a year, and is operated by Mr. William Trần [4].
In Dec. 2009, Bon Appetit magazine named its Sriracha sauce Ingredient of the Year for 2010. [5]
[edit] References
- ^ "Contact Us." Huy Fong Foods. Retrieved on February 26, 2010.
- ^ Huy Fong Foods, Inc.
- ^ "To our valued customers"
- ^ a b Huy Fong Foods is moving to Irwindale
- ^ "Best Foods of the Year". http://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforums/blogs/consciouscook/2009/12/best-foods-of-the-year-from-bo.html. Retrieved 2011-12-03.
- Fire In The Bowl - David Tran: The Emperor of Hot Sauce, Los Angeles magazine, April 2001 or repost
- Nakamura, Eric. "The Famous Hot Sauce Factory Tour!" (1997). Giant Robot, no. 9, pp. 32–33.
- A Chili Sauce to Crow About , The New York Times, May 20, 2009.
