Prices for sriracha are skyrocketing as the hot sauce retailer manages another summer shortage.
According to CNN, prices are as high as $70 on eBay and $124 on Amazon. The root cause of the price hikes: a shortage of red jalapenos, one of the key ingredients in the hot sauce.
Huy Fong Foods, the retailer that produces the sauce, has been dealing with the jalapeno shortage for years. According to The Guardian, a drought in Mexico has made it difficult to grow the peppers.
“It is a challenging crop to grow,” Stephanie Walker, a plant scientist at the New Mexico State University and advisor for the board of the Chile Pepper Institute, told The Guardian. “Jalapeños are really labor intensive, requiring people to de-stem them by hand before they go for processing.”
The shortage forced the company to shut down production in June of last year.
“Unfortunately, we can confirm that there is an unprecedented shortage of our products,” the company said in June 2022. “We are still endeavoring to resolve this issue that has been caused by several spiraling events, including unexpected crop failure from the spring chili harvest.”
There may be some hope. On Thursday, June 29, a Huy Fong Foods spokesperson told CBS News that limited production had begun.
“Unfortunately, we are still experiencing a shortage of raw material,” the spokesperson said. “At this time, we have no estimations of when supply will increase.”
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