Kiwis selling rare Szechuan sauce for hundreds as McDonald's NZ releases it for a limited time

The sauce, what was originally released to promote Disley's Mulan 1998, will be hitting McDonald's stores around the country on Wednesday, March 4.

Within 24 hours of McDonald's limited release of rare Szechuan sauce, Kiwis have tried to on-sell the product for hundreds of dollars.

The sauce, which sky-rocketed in popularity after featuring on the cartoon TV series Rick and Morty, has appeared on Facebook and other online trading websites, with sellers trying to flog them off at extreme prices to desperate fans.

The sauce made a special appearance on Rick and Morty.

Some auctions have a bulk of packets going for $1000 while individual products are being offered for $25 - $150.

A McDonald's NZ spokesperson told the Herald that they can't prevent people from selling their product for profit.

They added due to the excitement of the launch most stores temporarily ran out of stock.

"Restaurants are in the process of being restocked with the remaining stock of sauce over coming days."

The fast-food franchise wouldn't confirm how long stocks would last.

When McDonald's NZ first made the announcement, they said the Szechuan sauce will be available only in New Zealand for a "limited time", with 200,000 pottles available to Kiwis.

"We wanted to give Kiwis the chance to try one of the rarest sauces in the world," McDonald's New Zealand Managing Director David Howse said.

"There are 200,000 units of sauce, so that works out to be approximately 1 sauce for every 25 people."

To complement the return of the Szechuan, McDonald's has launched the 50 piece Chicken McNuggets sharebox.

Szechuan sauce was originally released to promote Disney's Mulan 1998, but it created a frenzy in the US when it featured an episode of Rick and Morty in 2017.

In the episode, Rick raves about the delicious sauce as he tries it for one last time during a dreamscape.

In 2018, when McDonald's re-released the sauce, Rick and Morty fans rioted at US stores as demand outweighed supply.

Angry crowd chants "We want sauce" as police force them back. 1000+ people camped out to get #szechuansauce but McDonalds had 70 sauces... pic.twitter.com/wEaqC64Hln

— Ian J Sikes (@ianjsikes) October 7, 2017

Cops are at Wellington McDonalds where tons of angry people lined up for hrs for Rick and Morty Szechuan sauce only to learn they had none pic.twitter.com/3T272osid4

— Lulu Ramadan 🌅 (@luluramadan) October 7, 2017

At the time police were called to at least one restaurant after hundreds of people queued outside restaurants demanding the sauce at 4am.

Meanwhile, others made an outrageous profit with the sauce as one woman traded her 2003 Volkswagen Golf for one packet of Szechuan sauce, while another person sold a packet for $24,000.