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It’s not just you. Sriracha is hard to come by these days — at least for one popular brand. The shortage of Huy Fong Foods’ Sriracha, the beloved red hot sauce packaged in those green-capped bottles, isn’t new — with the company pointing to a scarcity of chili pepper supply for several years now. And as frustrated fans continue to face store shelves missing the Huy Fong name, third-party resellers are punching up prices.
Huy Fong Sriracha, which used to go for under $5 or $10 a bottle, is now selling for shocking amounts in some listings posted to sites with vast third-party marketplaces — including Amazon, eBay and Walmart. Many are simply sold out.
For those still in stock, prices range depending on where you look. For example, ads for a single 17-ounce bottle on eBay stretched from around $20 to a whopping $150 — contrasting significantly with the price tags of other hot sauce brands, which don’t appear to have the same level of supply troubles.
Huy Fong told The Associated Press that it continues to be beset by shortages of raw materials, echoing a similar scarcity last year when the company temporarily suspended sales of Sriracha and other popular products like Chili Garlic and Sambal Oelek.
Huy Fong said that “limited production” resumed recently, although the California company didn’t specify by how much or provide an estimate of when it believes suppliers will be able to deliver an adequate number of peppers.
Some experts say that Huy Fong’s shortage is partially a consequence of climate change — pointing to weather shifts and extreme drought in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, where Huy Fong sources all of its chili peppers. “The main culprit here is a shortage of their primary ingredient, the red jalapeño chili pepper,” said David Ortega, a food economist and associate professor at Michigan State University. “And that’s due to climate change and the mega-drought.”
These peppers are typically grown under irrigation, with a lot of water drawn from the Colorado River — which has reached unprecedented low levels over recent years, Ortega said. The region has suffered insufficient rainfall and reduced run-off from snowpack.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.