[alexggordon]

Nothing stopping both from being true. The court judgements[0] aren't faked. It genuinely appears Underwood really was screwed over. That said, it doesn't take much for a CMO to look at the situation and figure out how to market the product from there. Something something lemonade.

Only reason I mention that is that is you're not really faking the grassroots part if you really do have a good origin story--you just got... lucky?

[0] https://cases.justia.com/california/court-of-appeal/2021-b30...

[x0x0]

Additionally, it's not like this necessarily got posted out of the blue. There's another Huy Fong sriracha shortage due to a Mexican crop failure driven by climate change. So anyone wondering why they can't buy it will naturally encounter this story.

https://lacabaarodriguez.shop/news/127/2026-03-06-huy-fong-f...

And as you mentioned, that lawsuit has pretty convincing evidence of a multi-year plan to really screw the supplier in order to get even more fantastically wealthy. Amazing greed combined with profound stupidity about the difficulty of reliably sourcing 2 _thousand_ acres of ripe chilies. There's been a decade of rolling shortages.