Man Sues Texas Pete Hot Sauce For Not Being Made in Texas

We all remember the famous Pace Picante Salsa ad where a bunch of cowboys give one of their own a hard time for eating salsa that was made in "NEW YORK CITY". Today, real life is catching up with that concept.

A California man is suing the makers of Texas Pete Hot Sauce because it's actually made in North Carolina. The plaintiff in the lawsuit, Philip White, claims he purchased a bottle of the sauce a year ago because he believed it was a "Texas Product".

The lawsuit alleges "By representing that its Texas Pete brand hot sauce products are "Texas products", when they are not, Defendant has cheated its way to a market-leading position in the $3 billion dollar hot sauce industry at the expense of law-abiding competitors and consumers nationwide who desire authentic Texas hot sauce."

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The product is made in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which the company freely admits on its website and on the bottles of the product.

Not only is the product not made in Texas, the lawsuit claims that the hot sauce isn't even made with Texas-style products.

""Although Defendant brands the Products ‘Texas Pete,’ there is surprisingly nothing Texas about them: unknown to consumers, the Products are standard Louisiana-style hot sauces, made with ingredients sourced outside the state of Texas, at a factory in North Carolina," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit does have a point about one thing.  They claim that the branding harms smaller companies in Texas that offer hot sauce that is actually from Texas.  It does cause harm to companies in Texas when outsiders appropriate our brands and profit off them and they don't adhere to "Texas standards and practices".

The company that makes Texas Pete Hot Sauce has until November 10th to respond.  I'm just wondering if anyone at that company is also even named "Pete".

I feel so betrayed.