Sriracha SUED Its Only Farmer. Then The Factory Ran OUT.

Sriracha's founder told his only pepper farmer he wanted to film the harvest just for fun He flew a drone over it and then handed the footage to new growers so that they could copy what the farmer was doing Then the company had the audacity to sue the farmer for a refund on last year's crop The farmer had grown every pepper in that bottle since 1988 28 years no contract on a handshake and a check that always cleared And here's why the farmer mattered Sriracha's made from red jalapenos picked ripe and ground within a day and the taste comes from those peppers The farmer had spent 28 years learning how to grow that exact pepper for that exact sauce not another farmer on earth knew how to do it the way that he did Every year the company paid up front and the farmer planted whatever amount that they had asked for By 2016 that was 1800 acres in Kern County, California and 80% of his money came from one customer In October of 2016 the company asked to film the harvest with a drone personally use only it said just for fun The farmer said Sriracha couldn't see any reason why not in 28 years nobody had ever shown any interest in what he did day to day A November 9th one meeting at the sauce factory turned into a fight over pepper prices The company wanted to pay less the farmer said he couldn't afford to grow the peppers for anything less than what they were already paying him So the greedy company walked out and ended the relationship after 28 years The farmer had already planned next season's crop 1800 acres with that company gone he was forced to lay off 40 workers then the lawsuit came The company said it had overpaid him by $1.4 million for the last crop and it wanted the money back And here's the part the company left out of its own lawsuit It had been planning to walk away from the farmer long before it ever asked to fly that drone The footage was never for fun it was a training video for the farmer's replacements The company had already handed it to the new growers so they could copy his harvest The farmer of course sued back in 2019 a jury found the company had lied to him every juror agreed The company had asked for 1.4 million instead the jury awarded the farmer 13.3 million for what he'd lost Then another 10 million just to punish the company 23.3 million dollars total The company appealed of course but lost in July of 2021 and had to pay every single dollar of it in August The kicker the new growers couldn't grow the peppers not to the right size not to the right rightness not on time In the first half of 2023 the Sriracha factory had no chilies at all and the sauce has never tasted the same since