Updated on May 11, 2021 at 8:48 pm Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images David Tran, owner of Huy Fong Foods Inc., which produces the famous sriracha sauce. Throughout the month of May, NBC Owned Television Stations is profiling members of the AAPI community as part of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month David Tran’s sriracha faces competition, not the least of which is a version of the chili sauce that a Thai company says is the original, first made in Si Racha, Thailand, 80 years ago. He has had serious setbacks, among them a costly lawsuit against the farmer who grew peppers for the sriracha for nearly 30 years before the partnership dissolved in a lawsuit. Not only was Tran’s company, Huy Fong Foods, ordered to pay more than $20 million but the farmer now has his own brand of the hot sauce, Underwood Ranches Sriracha.