A jury awarded $23.3 million to the ranch that grew red jalapeño peppers for Sriracha hot sauce, an attorney said Tuesday.

Irwindale-based Huy Fong Foods broke its contract with Ventura County’s Underwood Ranches and committed fraud by misrepresenting and concealing information, the Ventura County civil court jury found last week.

“We felt pretty confident because all we did was tell our story truthfully and the jury saw that,” grower Craig Underwood said Tuesday. “It’s a little hard to describe the emotion that I and everybody felt.”

The three-week trial exposed the unraveling of a 28-year business partnership and friendship between Huy Fong Foods founder and CEO David Tran and Underwood, who considered each other “like family.”

Tran Tuesday said he has one “agonizing question” in the wake of the decision: “I don’t understand how Huy Fong broke the contract with Underwood Ranches,” he said in an email sent through Huy Fong’s executive operations officer, Donna Lam.

The dispute stems from a $1.5 million overpayment Huy Fong made to Underwood for the 2016 harvest season. Huy Fong sued, accusing the grower of not repaying the credit and terminating the relationship. Underwood Ranches countersued for $20 million, saying Huy Fong breached its verbal contract and owes it for future costs incurred on behalf of the hot sauce maker.

The jury sided with Underwood.

It found that Huy Fong owed Underwood for two years of monetary losses incurred by the grower after the relationship was terminated in 2016, totaling $14.8 million. The $1.5 million that Huy Fong overpaid to Underwood was deducted from that amount. The jury also awarded Underwood $10 million in punitive damages.

“It was very gratifying, to say the least,” Underwood said.

Huy Fong’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment, but told the Ventura County Star the Sriracha maker intends to appeal the verdict.

During trial, Tran told jurors through a Mandarin interpreter he trusted Underwood. The grower attended the weddings of Tran’s children.

“We were like family. I really trusted him, but I never expected this,” Tran said. “A relationship that lasted 28 years, today, we ended up in court.”

James McDermott, an attorney for Underwood Ranches, told jurors as Tran began to exert “more control over his legacy,” it became clear that Huy Fong had “no intent” of following through with its 2017 agreement for Underwood to grow peppers for the hot sauce even though the grower had already made preparations for the harvest.

The long-established agreement between the two companies prescribed that Underwood would estimate the costs of producing more than 100 million pounds of peppers for the year’s supply of hot sauce and Huy Fong would pay an advance in increments to assume the risk. At the end of the harvest season, Huy Fong would make Underwood whole.

In 2016, Huy Fong overpaid Underwood and as discussions about the 2017 harvest season were underway, the relationship began to deteriorate.

Tran attempted to hire Underwood’s chief operating officer, Jim Roberts, to work for a new entity Tran formed called Chilico. Chilico is run by Lam, who is also Tran’s sister-in-law. It is a company formed to procure chilies for Huy Fong.

Tran told Underwood it would have to directly work with Chilico rather than Huy Fong. Underwood was concerned that Chilico only had $100 in assets but was willing to work with the company, his lawyer said.

Underwood had a theory for what was really going on: Chilico was formed because Tran’s son, a member of Huy Fong’s board of trustees and an owner of the company along with Tran’s other children, doesn’t like Lam and this was a way to pay Lam more. Because Chilico could set its own prices, it was “guaranteed to make money,” McDermott said.

Another suspected reason, McDermott said, was that once the children took over, they would be forced to work with Chilico because the agreement between the two companies states both parties must agree to terminate the relationship.

“It was clear they were being drawn into something that they were very, very nervous about,” McDermott said of his client.

In his testimony, Tran explained he formed Chilico so that Lam could communicate with the growers.

“It was so simple because I don’t understand English,” Tran said. “I put Donna Lam in charge to alleviate the frustrations I was having. When we first set it up, I never discussed with her her profit. I believe that she would be willing to work even if there was no profit. Also, if she were to retire, she would still have a business for her to run.”

After attempts to negotiate failed, Underwood informed Huy Fong it would not grow peppers for Huy Fong in 2017.

Tran said he went “nuts” when he learned this.

“(Huy Fong) did not have any plans or ability to get the main ingredient for the product that was so popular, and they had orders to fill for the coming year,” Huy Fong’s attorney Dan Carobini told the jury.

Tran was concerned he would go out of business, but after scrambling, the company was able to find peppers to meet the demand, Carobini said.

For many years, Underwood Ranches was the sole provider of the specialty red jalapeño peppers which were crushed into the hot sauce. The farm produced 100 million pounds of peppers each year on 1,700 acres of farmlands in Ventura and Kern counties. It is the biggest fresh jalapeño operation in the country. Huy Fong paid Underwood $13,000 per acre.

This is not the first legal battle Huy Fong has faced. In 2014, it was sued by the city of Irwindale after neighbors complained the spicy fumes from the factory caused health problems. After state leaders intervened, the city dropped its suit.

Tran, who is Chinese, left South Vietnam in 1978 during its Communist rule and fled to Hong Kong, where he came to the United States as a refugee on a freighter called “Huey Fong.” He began making and selling hot sauce in Vietnam and continued his business in Los Angeles where he formed his company, before moving to Rosemead and finally Irwindale as production grew.

The Underwood family, which also operates Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark, has been farming for four generations.