Not feeling the heat: Windsor, Ont., sellers feeling shortage of popular hot sauce

When it comes to sriracha sauce, David Phung of Windsor, Ont., has had to improvise lately.

"We've been out of the original sriracha sauce for a few months now," said the manager of the Hoa Viet grocery store on Wyandotte Street West.

And it's not just grocery stores that are not feeling the heat.

Just Falafel is a restaurant that uses the original sriracha produced by Huy Fong Foods.

"It went up by $2.50 [per bottle], which is not very good," said Amany Arabi, a server at Just Falafel.

Drought-like conditions in Mexico and a depleting water supply in the Colorado River have yielded a smaller crop of red jalapeños, which are required to make the sauce.

CBC News has requested an interview with Huy Fong Foods but has yet to hear back.

One expert said the sriracha shortage is similar to others we've seen in recent years. 

"The shortage is symptomatic of shortages we've seen throughout the last year, and actually longer ago where extreme weather events are causing production disruptions," said Michael van Massow, food economist with the University of Guelph.

van Massow compared the current red jalapeño shortage with last year's lettuce shortage.

"Lettuce grows quickly and is replaced by lettuce from other growing season growing areas. So we had short term shortages and significant price increases for lettuce."

van Massow said because jalapeños are a longer-growing crop, any impact in its supply chain could prolong shortages.

But the issue isn't confined to Windsor restaurants: Canada's largest grocery chains are also struggling to get the sauce.

In a statement to CBC News, Metro spokesperson Stephanie Bonk said Metro and Food Basics stores "have been seeing product shortages on the main brand of sriracha sauce due to the reported supply issues of ingredients."

Loblaw Companies did not comment, saying the issue is industry-related. Sobeys did not return a request for comment before publication.

Local restaurants using alternative options

Phung and Arabi said their establishments have been using alternatives to sriracha in the meantime. 

Phung has turned to another company that makes sriracha sauce. It costs about $8, while Huy Fong would cost about $6. 

While this company makes their sauce in Thailand, Phung said it hasn't made much of a difference to his customers.

"The customers seem to like this new one," he said.

But when the situation stabilizes, Phung said they will switch back to Huy Fong Foods' sriracha sauce.

Arabi said Just Falafel also has an in-house sauce they make, which isn't as spicy as sriracha.

If you're a big sriracha fan, single 740 millilitre bottles of Huy Fong sriracha sauce are selling on Amazon for anywhere from $35 to $45.

The price might be worth it for some people, said van Massow.

"Substitution becomes more difficult [if] they're willing to pay more to get the flavour that they know and love."

"I have sriracha in my fridge, but I have several other hot sauces, so I'm not going to go out and spend $45 on a bottle of sriracha. But some people are."

van Massow said he expects the situation to be resolved by the fall.

"Even if the brand leader doesn't have more supply this fall, some of the substitutes will have more supply this fall," he said.

"So we should see the market come back to more reasonable levels."