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Popular maker of sriracha sauce is temporarily halting production. Here’s why.
Your food could be decidedly blander this summer, with a major sriracha producer warning that it is suspending production because of a shortage of the Thai chili sauce’s main ingredient — hot peppers.
Huy Fung Foods, which makes a popular sriracha hot sauce, said it will stop producing the condiment until September because the red jalapeño chili peppers used to make it are “too green,” according to a company memo obtained by CBS MoneyWatch. USA Today first reported the news.
“After reevaluating our supply of chili, we have determined that it is too green to proceed with production as it is affecting the color of the product,” Huy Fung Foods said in an April 30 letter to wholesale buyers.
“We regret to inform you that we have decided to halt production until after Labor Day, when our next chili season starts,” the company added, noting that all customer orders as of May 6 are canceled. Huy Fung Foods sells its products to retailers, restaurants and other businesses, rather than to consumers.
The company declined to comment on its production pause or its memo to buyers.
A red jalapeño chili pepper that’s too green usually indicates it’s not fully mature or ripe, according to Stephanie Walker, a chili pepper expert at New Mexico State University.
“If too many peppers are green jalapeños, that means they are the immature color of the reds,” she told CBS MoneyWatch. “They haven’t reached proper maturity, so it could be a timing issue, like maybe they were planted too late or adverse environmental conditions slowed down the ripeness.”
It’s not the first time sriracha supplies have been threatened, with Huy Fong Foods last year facing production challenges related to crop failures.
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The warning comes as more frequent and severe weather events increasingly shape food supply. Although environmental conditions can hurt jalapeño pepper production, Walker said temperatures haven’t been hot enough in Mexico to have affected chili pepper production.
Still, some experts blame a changing climate for the subpar chili pepper growing conditions that have constrained the supply of sriracha in recent years. Mexico is suffering from a drought, with the most severe impact being felt in northern Mexico, where most of the peppers are grown, according to a map from Mexico’s National Water Commission.
California farmer Craig Underwood, who formerly supplied Huy Fung Foods with peppers for its sriracha sauce, said he used to produce 100 million pounds of red jalapeño chili peppers for the company on 2,000 acres. The sauce’s distinctive taste is because 90% of its contents consists of fresh red jalapeños, he said.
“That’s why it’s such a good product,” Underwood told CBS MoneyWatch.
Underwood, who makes his own sriracha, also said he has a sufficient supply of jalapeño peppers, while noting that he produces the sauce at a much smaller scale. He said using green peppers would give sriracha a brownish color instead of its typical bright red hue.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
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Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
