The Entrepreneurship Story of the American Chili Sauce King

Fleeing from Vietnam to the United States, he started by selling homemade chili sauce. 68-year-old David Chen (see picture on the right) now has his own business Huifeng Food Co., Ltd. is truly the king of chili sauce. His flagship product "Sriracha Chili Sauce" sells 20 million bottles every year and is an indispensable condiment on the tables of many restaurants and families in the United States.

When it comes to chili sauce, the first thing we may think of is Lao Gan Ma. The popularity of Lao Gan Ma overseas has made Chinese people proud to this day, but whether we admit it or not, it is not Lao Gan Ma that is rated the most popular chili sauce in the world by Americans, but "Lao Gan Ma" produced by the American HSBC Food Company. Sriracha” hot sauce.

This cuckolded chili sauce, nicknamed "American Godfather", sells more than 20 million bottles of chili sauce annually and earns US$85 million in annual revenue. He never advertises, but maintains 20% of annual revenue. growth rate.

You might say, if it’s just a bottle of chili sauce, how can it go to heaven? Yes, Sriracha chili sauce really goes to heaven. Scientists have discovered that astronauts will gradually lose their sense of taste in space and need dietary stimulation. Therefore, NASA's Food Science Department will include Sriracha chili sauce in space supplies and send it to the International Space Station for astronauts to enjoy. A director even filmed a documentary with Sriracha as the protagonist, and it won best short film awards at multiple film festivals.

Fleeing from Vietnam to the United States, he started his business by selling homemade chili sauce. 68-year-old David Chen (pictured on the right) now owns his own HSBC Food Company and is a veritable chili sauce king. His flagship product "Sriracha Chili Sauce" sells 20 million bottles every year and is an indispensable condiment on the tables of many restaurants and families in the United States.

Learning to make homemade hot sauce since childhood

David Chen was born in a Vietnamese farm family in 1945. His ancestral home is Guangdong, China. His ancestors moved his family from Chaozhou to the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, the capital of Vietnam.

David has grown chili peppers with his family since he was a child, making and selling chili sauce. During the Vietnam War, he sold his homemade oil-infused chili sauce to U.S. military camps and nearby stores. It was very popular and sold well, helping him save some savings.

In 1978, David and his family left Vietnam on the Taiwanese freighter "HSBC". In 1980, they settled in Chinatown, Los Angeles, and began to resume their old business. He buys chili peppers and other ingredients from the big market, makes the chili sauce by hand in a small workshop, and delivers it in a "Chevrolet" pickup truck. This workshop was the original Huifeng Food Company. David named the company after the name of the freighter that took him out of Vietnam, and used his own zodiac animal, chicken, as the trademark pattern of the chili sauce.

As Thai and Vietnamese restaurants became popular in the Los Angeles area, David's hot sauce began to make its way into more restaurants. Many restaurants will put a bottle of "Sriracha chili sauce" on the table for diners to take as they please.

In 1987, due to business expansion, the production speed of chili sauce could no longer keep up with market demand. David bought a factory covering an area of ??more than 6,000 square meters and a piece of land to grow chili peppers. He also taught himself mechanics and welding, and modified machines for producing chili sauce.

Today, Huifeng Food Company sells 20 million bottles of chili sauce every year, with annual sales of US$35 million. In 2010, the company built a new factory in California with a larger area. The company employs 70 workers, and eight of David's family members work for the family business. His 33-year-old son William is the company's new president.

"Sriracha Chili Sauce" in space

On the front wall of the factory hall, there is a huge photo that has nothing to do with chili sauce - two An astronaut on the International Space Station floats in weightlessness.

Why does the chili sauce factory hang such a picture? Look closely and the answer will be revealed. An arrow is marked on the photo, pointing to a small green plastic bottle cap floating in the air behind the astronaut, which is the iconic packaging of "Sriracha Hot Sauce".

A few years ago, company founder David Chen hung up this landmark photo of the company. At that time, scientists discovered that astronauts would gradually lose their sense of taste in space and needed delicious food. The Food Science Department of NASA therefore included HSBC Food Company's chili sauce in space supplies and sent it to the International Space Station for astronauts to enjoy.

The chili sauce bottle cap in the photo is so tiny, but it is still discovered by food lovers. One of the reasons may be that the packaging of David's chili sauce products has been unique and has never changed since its creation. It is very easy to identify: a transparent plastic bottle with a green cap. The bottle is printed with a red rooster logo and 5 text descriptions, including Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and Spanish.

Food lovers specially sent photos to Huifeng Food Company, and like many other loyal consumers who wrote to the company, expressed their love for this chili sauce. This story is enough to illustrate how popular "Sriracha" is in the United States.

Winning by quality without advertising

When pastry chef Carla Nielsen was working in a high-end restaurant in Berkeley, California, in the 1980s, she discovered that the Asian chefs in the kitchen liked to use "Yes" Sriracha chili sauce" is used to cook food, and employees also like to add a little bit of this chili sauce to enhance the flavor when eating. He judged from this that this cheap chili sauce could enter high-end restaurants and be loved by chefs, so it would be a hot seller in the future.

Sure enough, the subsequent market response of more than ten years confirmed his judgment: "Sriracha chili sauce" appeared in New York celebrity chef David Chang's Momofuku Noodle House; Wal-Mart supermarkets were initially opened in Los Angeles and Houston It piloted the sale of "Sriracha chili sauce" and then quickly expanded it to more than 3,000 stores across the United States; chain restaurants such as Subway also launched chili sauce-flavored dishes and dips.

"Bon Appetit" magazine hailed "Sriracha Sauce" as the "Ingredient of the Year" in 2010, and food writer Randy Clemens even wrote a special article about "Sriracha Sauce" A book called The Sriracha Cookbook.

Many people want to know how David successfully promotes his products, but in fact, he has never advertised chili sauce and does not have a "Facebook" account. The company website only has development milestones. , the last update was in 2004. "Sriracha Chili Sauce" continues to be a best-seller in the U.S. market entirely due to its reliable quality and reputation.

Dave DeWitt, author of "The Chili Sauce Bible", said that in the past 20 years, the market for spicy food has developed rapidly, but no one has become as popular as "The Hot Sauce Bible". Sriracha Sauce.”

Since 1983 to the present, the recipe of Sriracha chili sauce has never changed. It is processed directly from fresh red chili peppers without adding any coloring. It has the natural moisture and color of the chili peppers. “We have no secret except freshness,” said David Chen, the founder of Sriracha Chili Sauce and an overseas Chinese in Vietnam. From the first day it entered the market, Sriracha Chili Sauce did not add any water at all and was 100% genuine. , from pepper picking to processing, David requires employees not to spend more than two hours, because if they wait until the next day to process, the taste will be greatly reduced. For more than 30 years, HSBC's only supplier has been a family farm, which is a way to control prices and ensure freshness. But obviously, the production bottleneck of this farm limits the scale of Sriracha, but David said: "We can't guarantee what we can't do."

The experiences of successful companies are always surprisingly similar. , Lao Ganma and Lao Ganba each have their own persistence, but in the final analysis, this is: Only by not forgetting the original intention can you always succeed.

The unique packaging of Sriracha chili sauce

In Huifeng Food Company, the smell of garlic is everywhere. Garlic is the company’s flagship product and one of the key formulas for making chili sauce. one.

In addition, the packaging of Sriracha chili sauce has never changed since its creation. It is a transparent plastic bottle with a red rooster logo and descriptions in 5 languages, including Vietnamese, Chinese, English, French and Spanish.

In addition, another iconic packaging of Sriracha chili sauce is the small green bottle cap. This little green bottle cap also has a little story. At that time, scientists discovered that astronauts' sense of taste would become sluggish in space. NASA's Food Science Department listed Sriracha chili sauce as a space note food for astronauts to eat. This was a great success for David. A great honor.

Since David founded Huifeng Food Company and further promoted Sriracha chili sauce nationwide, we can learn some experiences from it:

1. Product first, maintain product focus Passion: When the subcontractor asked David to change his product, saying that American customers preferred sweeter food, David refused. He said that the hot pot seasoning must be spicy. If you don't like spicy, you like sweet. A little, then he can use less. I won't change my product.

2. Have a guiding principle for the company

3. Focus on customers and provide greater value: "We work hard every day to do our own things and try our best to Keep prices low, but make sure customers love our products," David said righteously. In order to open a gap with related competitive products, David said that customer needs are king.

4. Provide something distinctive: Brand effect can widen the gap with other competitors and increase your business needs. David's packaging is unique. The crazy rooster and the green bottle cap create David's brand.

;