The nostalgia for discontinued McDonald’s menu items is a stronger phenomenon than many might think. It isn’t just people missing certain products or clamoring for them to return; sometimes the nostalgia is so strong that people are willing to pay ridiculous premiums for unopened discontinued items like toys and sauce packets.
For many, it may seem reasonable to dish out a few extra dollars for a treat that’s no longer available. However, in one extreme case, a gallon jug of McJordan Barbecue Sauce, a discontinued McDonald’s sauce, sold for a whopping $10,000 on eBay. The reason the price was so high can likely be attributed to an attempt to upsell a long since discontinued item.
What’s even more unusual is that this is becoming something of a trend. Expired McDonald’s sauce packets are selling for hundreds online in an attempt to capitalize on the limited availability of discontinued offerings. However, the sale of the McJordan Barbecue Sauce was by far one of the priciest examples of this trend.
The upselling of McDonald’s sauces
If you were to go on eBay and search for McDonald’s sauces, over 1,000 results would pop up. They come in all sizes, ranging anywhere from a single sauce packet to a lot of 50 sauce packets. Some are a mixed bag of several flavors, others are giant jugs worth of sauce.
While you can find some McDonald’s sauces for a reasonable price, most of these listings go for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. A good majority of these items are popular discontinued sauces from decades ago, like the McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce originally released in 1998. Other examples include McDonald’s BBQ Sauce from 1986, priced at $5,000, and more McJordan Barbecue Sauce, priced at just under $6,000.
While these excessively high prices tend to be associated with vintage McDonald’s sauces, some upsellers are starting to apply this practice to more recent sauces. The Sweet Chili and Cajun sauces from the McDonald’s BTS meal back in 2021 was especially popular for resellers, not just because of the limited availability, but also due to the branding of the meal.
