<story><title>Sriracha hit revenue of $150M a year with no sales team or ad spend</title><url>https://twitter.com/TrungTPhan/status/1409185044501987340</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kenneth</author><text>As an expat who lives in China and loves Chinese food, it makes me incredibly sad that in the Western world Chinese food is basically greasy bland cheap garbage generally inspired by 19th century Cantonese immigration (chop suey, fried rice, and various stir frys, plus uniquely American inventions like orange chicken or fortune cookies). What happened to the amazing food of Taiwan, Hunan, Sichuan, Shaanxi? There&amp;#x27;s so much better Chinese food than what you&amp;#x27;ll find at your average American Chinese restaurant.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s getting a bit better but there&amp;#x27;s still a long way to go even in the cities that have more Chinese options (NYC, west coast cities)</text></item><item><author>spoonjim</author><text>I don’t think the “franchise” is literal in terms of a royalty — it’s just that the vast majority of Chinese restaurants order their supplies from the same few distributors yielding largely similar results. It’s why you pretty much know what you’re getting when you go to a new Chinese restaurant in a way that you don’t at a new Italian restaurant.</text></item><item><author>hhmc</author><text>&amp;gt;The &amp;quot;local Chinese restaurant&amp;quot; is a much more franchised thing than most people are aware of&lt;p&gt;This is interesting (but also makes sense) -- do you happen to have an article?</text></item><item><author>boomboomsubban</author><text>The part that strikes me is that they still have the same 10 distributors since the 80&amp;#x27;s.&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;local Chinese restaurant&amp;quot; is a much more franchised thing than most people are aware of, and those 10 distributors meant it already ended up throughout the country and allowed everyone to try it for free. This is likely the secret to it&amp;#x27;s success.&lt;p&gt;The only similar product I can think of is Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Though it did get some advertising, by automatically being available in every Taco Bell it became a minor craze. It&amp;#x27;s not an easily reproducible concept though.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jrochkind1</author><text>Sichuan seems pretty popular in the USA these days.&lt;p&gt;In the medium-sized city where I live, there is a standard American Chinese place by a university which is frankly not very good even for American Chinese food, but was owned by people from sichuan and would make off menu sichuan dishes for immigrant students. But they noticed non-immigrant Americans ordering them too, and wisely noticed the general trend going on, and the same owners up a different place a few miles away with actual sichuan food and prices 2x+ higher, which has been very successful. :)&lt;p&gt;In Philadelphia there&amp;#x27;s also the popular Han Dynasty chain of sichuan places.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d imagine even the places with food closer to &amp;quot;actual&amp;quot; sichuan food, if they are popular with non-Chinese people, have &amp;quot;Americanized&amp;quot; to some extent. I couldn&amp;#x27;t say as they are my only exposure to it! But I know sometimes I get something where the flavors&amp;#x2F;textures are just TOO different than what I&amp;#x27;m used to, and I just don&amp;#x27;t like it!</text></comment>
<story><title>Sriracha hit revenue of $150M a year with no sales team or ad spend</title><url>https://twitter.com/TrungTPhan/status/1409185044501987340</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kenneth</author><text>As an expat who lives in China and loves Chinese food, it makes me incredibly sad that in the Western world Chinese food is basically greasy bland cheap garbage generally inspired by 19th century Cantonese immigration (chop suey, fried rice, and various stir frys, plus uniquely American inventions like orange chicken or fortune cookies). What happened to the amazing food of Taiwan, Hunan, Sichuan, Shaanxi? There&amp;#x27;s so much better Chinese food than what you&amp;#x27;ll find at your average American Chinese restaurant.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s getting a bit better but there&amp;#x27;s still a long way to go even in the cities that have more Chinese options (NYC, west coast cities)</text></item><item><author>spoonjim</author><text>I don’t think the “franchise” is literal in terms of a royalty — it’s just that the vast majority of Chinese restaurants order their supplies from the same few distributors yielding largely similar results. It’s why you pretty much know what you’re getting when you go to a new Chinese restaurant in a way that you don’t at a new Italian restaurant.</text></item><item><author>hhmc</author><text>&amp;gt;The &amp;quot;local Chinese restaurant&amp;quot; is a much more franchised thing than most people are aware of&lt;p&gt;This is interesting (but also makes sense) -- do you happen to have an article?</text></item><item><author>boomboomsubban</author><text>The part that strikes me is that they still have the same 10 distributors since the 80&amp;#x27;s.&lt;p&gt;The &amp;quot;local Chinese restaurant&amp;quot; is a much more franchised thing than most people are aware of, and those 10 distributors meant it already ended up throughout the country and allowed everyone to try it for free. This is likely the secret to it&amp;#x27;s success.&lt;p&gt;The only similar product I can think of is Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Though it did get some advertising, by automatically being available in every Taco Bell it became a minor craze. It&amp;#x27;s not an easily reproducible concept though.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alliao</author><text>what you&amp;#x27;re witness isn&amp;#x27;t actually Chinese food it&amp;#x27;s the melting pot of multiculturalism in action. Just like curry in UK, General Tso&amp;#x27;s chicken is now part of the US identity. New comers will bring new forks but the old dare I say classics are here to stay.</text></comment>