Burning my dawg's throat, po' fellah..! Fix dat smell, Chinaman...! You heah..?!
Posted on 05/19/2014 7:26:06 PM PDT by Aunt Polgara
IRWINDALE>> Sriracha maker David Tran was succinct when it came to his requirements for any place where he might expand his popular hot sauce business.
“(We) must have chilies,” Tran said at a news conference where he announced he was considering an expansion to the Lone Star State.
Last week, a delegation of Texas politicians, who have actively courted Tran via social media and open letters, toured the Azusa Canyon Road factory.
Texas is known as a pepper-growing region, however, Craig Underwood, who grows all of the jalapeños that are crushed into the iconic roster sauce, said it would take years to start growing crops for processing in Texas.
“Moving or even expanding an operation like this is a huge challenge,” Underwood said in an interview. “It’s taken us years to find varieties and growing areas here.”
Testing a variety, which must be bred, to putting it into production takes at least three to four years, he said.
The majority of Texas-grown peppers are sold at markets and not processed in hot sauces or salsa, agriculture experts said. In a survey last year of the pepper crop in Texas, about 450 acres were dedicated to growing chili peppers, said Marco Palma, an associate professor and economist in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M.
Underwood will plant 2,000 acres of peppers this season on dozens of farms in Ventura and Kern counties, which will produce about 58,000 tons of chilies.
Ten to 15 years ago Texas had a larger crop of hot pepper varieties, but that market has moved to Mexico, said Daniel Leskovar, director of the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center and professor in the Department of Horticultural Sciences. About 1,500 acres of Texas farms are dedicated to growing all varieties of peppers, he said.
Leskovar said the regions that produce jalapeño and other hot pepper varieties are West Texas, Southwest Texas, regions near the Mexican border, and the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.
“We’d be happy to see some potential growth in that area ... it could be historical,” Leskovar said.
While Texas has a climate conducive to growing peppers, the state is also subject to Texas-sized variabilities in weather, Underwood said, including hurricanes, hail and droughts.
“We have problems here, but they may not be quite the magnitude they can be there,” said Underwood.
For example, a wind storm last year in Kern County destroyed several acres of peppers, although Underwood had enough time to re-plant some of the crop.
The severe drought that California is experiencing will likely not harm the crop this season, Underwood said, although some of his wells have been pulled.
But that could change if the predicted El Niño doesn’t arrive.
“If we don’t get rain, we’re really up the creek,” he said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently raised the probability for El Niño conditions developing before the end of the year to 78 percent, which will lead to a wetter winter in California.
Underwood and his operations manager Jim Roberts left the Texas delegation with requests for more information about the state’s agriculture industry.
Tran said if the demand for his hot sauce continues, he will outgrow his 650,000 square-foot, $40 million Irwindale plant by 2017. Irwindale sued his company, Huy Fong Foods, in Los Angeles County Superior Court last fall because some residents said harsh odors wafting from the Sriracha factory burned their eyes, caused them to choke and forced them to stay indoors.
Other California municipalities have also been courting Tran.
Irwindale Mayor Mark Breceda said Wednesday he, another city councilman and representatives from the governor’s office will tour the Sriracha plant in the coming weeks.
The City Council on Wednesday delayed its vote on a resolution that would put Tran under a 90-day time frame to fix the problems at his factory that the council said created a public nuisance.
Peppers are easy. Surely Texas has a place where they can grow peppers!
Irwindale has something like 900 voters and is run like a business.
Sriracha racked up ZERO complaints in 30 years at their previous location, yet suddenly FOUR at this new place, and the first couple were logged by the SON of the key person on the city council.
Basically Irwindale is another Bell, California, where everyone in the city gummint was running the place and paying themselves like Boss Hoggs from The Dukes of Hazzard.
Irwindale want$ to be paid off, but i$ too $mart to put it in $o few word$.
I grew them in my own back yard in containers in Texas...good grief!
Nothing like an example of getting screwed by the Californicators.
Burning my dawg's throat, po' fellah..! Fix dat smell, Chinaman...! You heah..?!
It would be better with peppers. Rosters tend to get all soggy.
Nothing like an example of getting screwed by the Californicators.
Yes, you must live around here. You have pegged Irwindale to a tee! And it’s such a dirty, gritty place because of all the gravel pits.
I’m just thrilled to learn from this article that El Nino chances are up to 78%!
I have been tracking oceanic temperatures against rainfall levels on the Central Coast of California for ten years. I can tell you for a fact that although El Nino events may correlate with increased rainfall in California when averaged over many years, there is zero predictive value when it comes to any particular year. The correlation numbers I have calculated are very low.
Oh, the government just says stuff. There’s no real expectation that any of it is backed up by facts.
When you live in the west (as I know you do), rain is like money, it doesn’t exist until it’s in your pocket.
I hear you. Peppers can be grown just about anywhere. If you’re into them (and brother, am I ever), you can grow them in pots on your porch if you really have to. I’ve got three or four different varieties in flats that’ll be ready to transplant into the garden in another three weeks or so. And remember: the Scoville chart is your friend.
Oh I know that, but I did want other FReepers to know that it's all smoke and mirrors, and not just with regard to glow-bill warming.
Pepper ping!
Is there a kid within 20 miles of Ventura County who hasn’t visited Underwood Family Farms on a field trip and returned with an armload of vegetables they picked themselves? What a great place! I was amazed when I found out that they grow all of Huy Fongs chili peppers.
Did you know that Huy Fong has no marketing or sales budget? Their sales growth over 20 years has all been word of mouth.
Heat units..! Sez right heah dem peppahs got dem SCOVILLE heat units, yessah..! And *16 million* of 'em...! Hoooey..! Now dat's monah, raight deyah, I'm tellin ya..! Throat burning already, dat blasted, rich Chinaman...! Where Enus..?! Get Enus on da phone..!
Even if you get it, it can be money down the storm drain. Erosion rates here can get pretty extreme, but then, so can droughts.
That’s funny
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