Today, Quartz posted a profile of David Tran, the admittedly fascinating creator of the squeeze-bottle hot sauce that launched a thousand novelty cookbooks, fast-food tie-ins, and questionable merch. Of course, we’ve been down this road before: Tran is depicted as an unwitting chile-pepper savant who did little to court his astronomical success and “hardly knows where his sauces are sold.” Huy Fong fans know little about the man behind the green cap, the profile claims, because Tran “only began granting interviews and extensive press access recently.” But he’s not really that elusive.
The Scoville sovereign likely knows perfectly well what kind of Sriracha hysteria he created — he must look at his bottom line, after all, even if he claims, “My American dream was never to become a billionaire” — and publications high and low have already noticed what an undeniably compelling immigrant-and-food success story his is. There’s even a movie coming out soon. “People who come here are never interested in the product, only in the profits,” he says, however, grimly. But people do care about the product, as well as supposedly its under-the-radar founder and his company. Fry some eggs, grab a bottle, and see below.
Sriracha Hot Sauce Catches Fire, Yet ‘There’s Only One Rooster’ [Businessweek]
Famous Sriracha ‘Rooster Sauce’ finally makes the move to new Irwindale factory [Daily Breeze]
Sriracha hot sauce purveyor turns up the heat [LAT]
David Tran: Hot Sauce Visionary [Mental Floss]
A Chili Sauce to Crow About [NYT]
The highly unusual company behind Sriracha, the world’s coolest hot sauce [Quartz]
