I have a bottle of Texas Pete hot sauce in my kitchen cupboard. So when I saw an item in Harper's magazine (January 2023 issue) quoting a class-action lawsuit against the product's manufacturer, the T.W. Garner Food Company, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I became very interested in what the lawsuit was about.
The lawsuit, filed in September, stated that "A hot sauce is labeled 'Texas' if it is made in Texas, using Texas ingredients and flavor profiles. .... Texas hot sauces...must be made in Texas from ingredients sourced from Texas. ....Texas takes great pride in its hot sauce. ....The defendant trades on the reputation of Texas. There is nothing Texas about them."
Nowhere on the label does it say "Texas-style" (whatever that is). There's only a cartoon-drawing of a cowboy wearing a 10-gallon hat, with a whip in his hand, and three red peppers near the logo. The label says the company has been making Texas Pete hot sauce "Since 1929." Which leads one to ask this question, why has it taken 93 years to complain about the product's authenticity?
Frankly, I don't know what makes Texas hot sauce different from any other hot sauce. If there is such a thing as Texas-style hot sauce and the recipe is generic and in the public domain, how is its replication by others injurious to the reputation of Texas? I'm not a lawyer but based on the above quote, this lawsuit sounds frivolous. That could mean it will get thrown out of court.
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