Nothing stopping both from being true. The court judgements[0] aren't faked. It genuinely appears Underwood really was screwed over. That said, it doesn't take much for a CMO to look at the situation and figure out how to market the product from there. Something something lemonade.
Only reason I mention that is that is you're not really faking the grassroots part if you really do have a good origin story--you just got... lucky?
Additionally, it's not like this necessarily got posted out of the blue. There's another Huy Fong sriracha shortage due to a Mexican crop failure driven by climate change. So anyone wondering why they can't buy it will naturally encounter this story.
And as you mentioned, that lawsuit has pretty convincing evidence of a multi-year plan to really screw the supplier in order to get even more fantastically wealthy. Amazing greed combined with profound stupidity about the difficulty of reliably sourcing 2 _thousand_ acres of ripe chilies. There's been a decade of rolling shortages.
Only reason I mention that is that is you're not really faking the grassroots part if you really do have a good origin story--you just got... lucky?
[0] https://cases.justia.com/california/court-of-appeal/2021-b30...