McDonald's sauce hunters swoop on local restaurants

McDonald’s pulled off a nationwide marketing stunt on January 26, releasing 10,000 bottles of its Big Mac “secret sauce.” The free 11.4-ounce bottles could only be obtained at few undisclosed restaurant locations and by stating the phrase, “There’s a Big Mac for that.”

The day of the promotion, none of the McDonald’s news websites disclosed any local locations for the giveaway. However, the supposedly secret release of the secret sauce caused lines to form at most area McDonald's, including in Del Mar.

On Bill Handel’s morning radio talk-show on L.A.’s KFI AM 640, food reporter Neal Saavedra said the only SoCal locations he found out about were going to be a McDonald's on the west side of L.A. and the one in Carlsbad at 5990 Avenida Encinas, just off I-5 at Palomar Airport Road.

Mid-morning, at the cash register, a manager at the Carlsbad restaurant first acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about. After saying I knew the secret passwords, she looked away and whispered under her breath, “12:45.”

Unfortunately, I could not return at 12:45. When I came back at 1:20, signs were posted, notifying hopeful sauce-seekers that the restaurant was out of the bottles. In my disappointment, my wife reminded me, “It was on KFI!” forgetting the top-rated 50,000 watt’er talk station has thousands of listeners in San Diego.

The next morning, a check of Amazon and Craigslist (San Diego), showed no bottles for sale. But over on eBay, 414 sellers nationwide were trying to profit off the promotion, including two from San Diego. According to eBay photos, each of the 10,000 U.S. bottles was individually numbered.

Under the “Buy It Now” option on eBay, prices went as high as $1000; but some 20 hours after being listed, there were no takers. On actual bidding auctions, most had numerous bidders in the $50–$100 range, with free shipping. By 8:00 a.m. the next day, 188 bottles had been sold on eBay, all for less than $125.

One of the two local eBay’ers selling their bottles told the Reader that he received 1 of only 14 given away at the Via de la Valle McDonald’s in Del Mar. Their giveaway started at 2:00 p.m., with a line forming around 12:30. He wrote in an email that in the parking lot some people who had been turned away tried to buy bottles from others.

On the day of the release, KFI’s Saavedra’s website, The Fork Report, revealed a secret sauce recipe, reportedly shared by a former executive chef at McDonalds.

McDonald’s sauce has been one of the corporation’s most heavily guarded secrets and doesn’t offer the condiment in little packets. The company did however share it one time, in 2015, in Australia. Someone paid $18,000 for one only 200 bottles released.