One of the best and most delicious things about McDonald’s is the different sauce options. McDonald’s has tons of sauces for nuggets, all of which we have ranked, as well as sauces that go on their burgers, like signature Big Mac sauce. All of them are delicious, but it’s the limited edition sauces that really capture the eyes — and sometimes wallets — of McDonald’s sauce aficionados.
Recently, there’s been a trend online of reselling McDonald’s limited edition sauce packets for unusually high prices. It might seem counterintuitive to put price tags of hundreds of dollars or more on fast food sauce, but since the sauces were only available for a limited amount of time, people have started collecting them in hopes of being able to upsell once they are no longer available at McDonald’s.
Online sellers even go so far as to label the sauces as being in “mint condition,” even though the only two conditions for sauce packets are sealed and opened. As unusual as the practice sounds, it’s more common than you would think. As of this writing, there are over 1,300 results on eBay alone for McDonald’s dipping sauces available for resale.
The phenomenon of selling McDonald’s sauce online
Fast food chains like McDonald’s are no strangers to selling limited-edition menu items. The limited availability helps encourage customers to buy it if only for the novelty. That mindset now extends to reselling sauces. Essentially, customers will hoard limited edition items until they are no longer being sold at McDonald’s, then sell them online for marked-up price points.
One great example of this phenomenon is McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce. The sauce had two limited runs: one in 1998 and one in 2018. Sauces from both years have cropped up online for ridiculous prices. While many would never seriously consider buying McDonald’s sauce for hundreds of dollars, someone did actually buy a 1998 Szechuan Sauce for almost $15,000. 2018 Szechuan Sauce packets have yet to reach that high of a price tag, but they are still for sale online for over $400.
Another unusual example is McDonald’s hot mustard, which is currently only available internationally. This sauce isn’t exactly discontinued, but its limited availability has made it a more valuable commodity. Some have tried selling sets of 12 sauce packets online for over $2,000. Others have listed individual hot mustard packets for $25, which is certainly cheaper but still a lot more than it would cost at McDonald’s.
