Producer
Underwood Ranches
Chili grower; Huy Fong's sole jalapeño supplier for ~30 years until a 2017 split + lawsuit.
1
Inputs supplied
1
Goods downstream
0
Facilities
0
Stories
What they make
1 input Underwood Ranches supplies
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What else they do
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Contract chili & produce farming
Branded consumer hot sauce & specialty foods
Intelligence
What's known
Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains, chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.
Concentration2024
For nearly three decades a single Ventura-County grower (Underwood Ranches) supplied effectively all the jalapeños behind the world's most recognizable Sriracha — extreme single-source concentration that left BOTH parties exposed when it broke. Underwood shed ~half its staff; Huy Fong lost its proven grower and had to rebuild its pepper supply from scratch. A flagship consumer condiment rode for years on one farm's harvest. [verify: 28yr exclusive confirmed by Fortune/CNBC/NBC]
Fortune ↗Incident2022
After splitting from Underwood, Huy Fong leaned on Mexican-grown red jalapeños — and the 2022–2023 Sriracha shortage followed directly from a chili-pepper crop failure there. More than 70% of Mexico hit drought (the worst Southwest megadrought in ~1,200 years) across the Sinaloa/Chihuahua/Michoacán growing belt; red jalapeños grow only ~4 months a year and need constant irrigation. Huy Fong suspended sales, and bottles spiked to $70–$150 on secondary markets — a clean climate-driven supply shock on the chili-pepper input. [verify: Mexico drought, suspended sales, $70-150 resale all confirmed by CNBC/NBC/Fox]
NPR ↗Origin2019
Underwood Ranches grew red jalapeños almost exclusively for Huy Fong Foods' Sriracha for ~28 years (1989–2017), dedicating the bulk of its acreage to that one customer. The relationship collapsed in 2017; a California jury awarded Underwood $23.3M for fraud and breach (affirmed on appeal in 2021), and the grower — which laid off about half its workforce after the split — pivoted to selling its OWN branded Sriracha and salsas, vertically integrating from farm to bottle. [verify: NBC News + appellate ruling confirm 28yr/.3M/layoffs]
CNBC ↗