When did Lea&Perrins Worcestershire get spicy??

Ok , we’ve been using L&P sauce for decades. Stews, soups, mushrooms, etc, buy the Costco sizes twice a year. We’ve never noticed that it was spicy.

But this last batch? Can’t even use it in the normal quantities any recipes. It just overpowers everything and adds spice to things that don’t necessarily call for spice. And we like spice. Have a fridge drawer and a cupboard shelf full of various hot things but L&P Whatsthisheresauce has never been one of them. Even had my son try it who’s more of a hot sauce lover than i am and he agreed, yep it’s spicy.

I’m going to have to look for a different brand because this is basically unusable except in limited new situations. Only reason I realized this is that I had made a non spicy shepherds pie that was definitely spicy even though I had used zero heat ingredients. Went through all the things I’d used, then saw “chili pepper extract” as the last ingredient on the L&P label.

So what gives? Is this a bad batch or is this something that’s happened recently or have were just not noticed this (hard to believe that tbf)?

Oh. Location is Midwest US. And no the “salt is a spice” does not apply! 😂