Sriracha [Video fades in to show two people eating food at an outdoor marketplace. It then cuts to show a long line of people stretching down the sidewalk with cones at the edge of the street beside them. Then, it cuts to a bustling open area space with several market tents and tables with people standing around them. A sign reads, "La sriracha festival. VIP Seating and Beverages Indoors."] NARRATOR: In Los Angeles this past Sunday, the line stretched down the block at the first ever Sriracha festival. [A Scoops employee serves someone a small bowl of orange-colored ice cream. Then, a green apple on a stick coated with a caramel-colored glaze and crumbs. There are two drinks on the table by the apple and a woman standing behind. Next, someone making a drink in a cocktail shaker with an orange liquid and sriracha, shaking it and then pouring it into a plastic cup with ice cubes.] NARRATOR: There was Sriracha ice cream, Sriracha apples, and even Sriracha cocktails. [The video cuts to a man talking about sriracha. As he talks, a picture of sriracha bottles is shown, then the video cuts back to him.] MAN: There are certain things that have magic. That sauce has magic. I bet you can get into Fort Knox or the Pentagon easier than you can get it into the Sriracha headquarters. [Next, a clip of sriracha bottles moving along the production line and eventually into boxes. Empty bottles are transported and filled by machinery. The video then cuts to the interviewer and narrator walking in the factory. A brief clip of the full bottles is also shown. They have green lids and a drawing of a rooster on the bottle.] NARRATOR: Ours were the first TV cameras let inside the brand new $40 million Sriracha plant in Irwindale, California. This month is peak production. 200,000 bottles are filled each day. Sriracha is run by founder David Tran. The rooster on the bottle is his astrological sign. [They video then cuts to showing David Tran being interviewed.] DAVID TRAN: If you don't like my product, what happened with you? Something wrong. INTERVIEWER: There's something wrong with people? TRAN: We do the fresh one, the best one, the cheapest one. INTERVIEWER: But there are those people who say it's too spicy. TRAN: Using less. Using less. [Tran chuckles] INTERVIEWER: Just use less. [Interviewer chuckles] TRAN: Yes. [Cut to clip of sriracha bottles being filled by machines, then a clip of red jalapeño peppers being carried along a conveyor belt. Next, a clip of jalapeños being thrown into crates in a truck bed, followed by clips of workers picking the peppers on a jalapeño farm with mountains in the background.] NARRATOR: The main ingredient in Sriracha is spicy red jalapeno pepper. They are grown on this California farm just 70 miles away. Craig Underwood owns the farm and has worked for David Tran for 25 years. [Underwood watching jalapeños be emptied from one truck into another, then more video clips of the workers picking them.] NARRATOR: They started with 50 acres of peppers. Next year, they'll plant 4,000. [Cut to Underwood being interviewed.] CRAIG UNDERWOOD: From the time they're picked until they're ground, it's about six hours. And that's important to David. He wants them fresh, he wants them red, he wants them spicy, and he wants them tasty. [More clips are shown of the peppers being picked, dumped into a truck from a conveyor, and carried and put into crates by the workers. The peppers are being dumped into factory. The peppers are then shown being sprayed by jets of water at high power on a conveyor belt, then coming out of a machine in small bits. The bits are then shown in a large tub with large metal helixes mixing them around together. The next clip shows factory workers putting plastic over the tops of blue barrels containing the pepper bits and then black lids on top of that.] NARRATOR: When the peppers reach the plant, they are washed, crushed, mixed, and then stored in these blue barrels. [Cut to the interviewer and David Tran driving around a warehouse of just blue barrels.] INTERVIEWER: How many barrels are in this warehouse? TRAN: More than 200,000. NARRATOR: David Tran drove us around the new 650,000 square foot facility. But now his hot sauce has him in hot water with neighbors near the plant. [Cut to a clip of the pepper bits moving along the conveyor belt. This fades to show the plant from above. It consists of several buildings, as well as parking and more blue barrels can be seen. Cut to inside the factory again, where there are many machines in the background and two workers with nose-and-mouth masks stand behind two stacks of big brown bags. Several clips of peppers going through the machines are shown again.] This week, the city of Irwindale filed a lawsuit asking a judge to shut down Sriracha until they can figure out how to manage the strong chili pepper odor that neighbors say is making them sick. [Cut to show the trees and neighborhood from the plant, then to a woman being interviewed outside her home.] WOMAN: We had a bridal shower. We had to have a guest go inside, because we were all choking, hacking. It was right in the throat. [The woman grips her throat] [Cut to a grocery store aisle with sriracha at one end.] NARRATOR: There's a lot at stake. Last year Sriracha sold $60 million worth of sauce, and revenue is growing at 20% each year. We interviewed Tran before the lawsuit was filed. [Cut to show Tran and the interviewer in the factory again, then to Tran being interviewed.] INTERVIEWER: Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine you'd be running this? TRAN: I never thought that we would make big money or do something like that, but keep me busy, always. Every day, make more and more, and more product. [Cut to Tran watching the full Sriracha bottles move along a conveyor belt.] NARRATOR: He's been perfecting his product for more than 30 years. [Cut to old black-and-white footage of a house being blown up and someone hiding behind a tree. Then, more footage of soldiers watching something and holding their guns, then a clip of them running.] NARRATOR: After the Vietnam War, David Tran fled with his family to the United States. He started mixing hot sauce in barrels on the streets and sold it to LA's growing Asian community. [Cut to a downtown street in LA. The street sign on the intersection reads, "Cesar E Chavez" and there are two golden dragons atop red pillars on the sides. A sign on the right side of the street reads, "Chinatown." This clip fades to show people walking along the sidewalk of a downtown street. Fade to a building with three arches and big glass windows, with a sign out from that reads, "Huy Fong Foods Inc."] NARRATOR: He named his company Huy Fong Foods after the Taiwanese freighter that brought him out of Vietnam. He grew it without the help of any investors. [Clips showing the bottles of sriracha and the factory, then cut to Tran being interviewed.] TRAN: I want to say thanks to the America. They accept me, when I refugee. I try to do something to give back to the American. [Cut to interviewer and Tran in the factory, looking at the blue barrels and the filled bottles, then showing the Huy Fong Foods Inc. building again.] NARRATOR: Tran says he wants to be a good neighbor and will work with the city to reduce the pepper smell. [Tran is shown holding bottles of sriracha in front of a table covered in sriracha bottles and being photographed at the sriracha festival.] NARRATOR: But while he may not be popular with his neighbors, to Sriracha fans, this 68-year-old is the hottest thing around.