Over at Eat Drink & Be Merry blogger Dylan James Ho points us out to a bottle of counterfeit Sriracha he found in Little Saigon (Los Angeles). The fake is pretty easy to spot (the blue cap and the unicorn on the front are dead give-a-ways) but it’s obvious it’s produced to deceive the customer. Huy Fong Foods Inc., the original manufacturer of Sriracha, reports that its sauce is often poorly imitated and suggests these four ways to be sure you have the real thing:
1. That taste is not identical to our product.
2. Below the green cap of our bottles, there is a protruding plastic ring, which is the same diameter of the green cap. The counterfeit product’s ring is much smaller.
3. Our product’s batch code consists of two lines printed with a laser etcher, which produces a clear, colorless imprint. The first line states the product/batch code (must start with an H) and the second line states the expiration date. The counterfeit does not have a product/batch code but has an expiration date that may be either be printed in black ink or or hot-stamped resulting in a colorless, blurry imprint.
4. Finally, our bottle has ‘Huy Fong USA’ embossed on the bottom of our bottle. The counterfeit does not.
Photo from Dylan James Ho
Via Coudal.
Pingback: Watch Out for Fake Unicorn Sriracha & Other Tips on How to Spot Fakes | Foodbeast
This article does not address restaurants that use authentic sriracha bottles but refill them with cheap knock off brands. The only way you can tell at that point is to become enough of a connoisseur of sriracha that you know the difference
The very first bullet covers that:
1. That taste is not identical to our product.