600 tubs of French dip mysteriously showed up at several Philly restaurants

Restaurants around Philadelphia have been receiving entire pallets of Helluva Good! brand French onion dip for the past month, sometimes mysteriously and without warning. The restaurants have all been small and fast casual, with varying refrigeration capacities, and they have struggled to manage the shipments of nearly 600 pounds of perishable product each. Some have, after determining the safety of the product, distributed it to customers as a bonus to their orders. Others discarded it. For everyone, having 600 tubs of French dip show up at their doorstep presented a major logistical challenge.

The 600 twelve-ounce tubs of French onion that showed up at Mac Mart’s Center City kiosk on Thursday, Mar. 5, was an unwelcome surprise. The shipment had not been requested or approved. Mac Mart owner Marti Lieberman attempted to refuse the shipment, but the urgency in the delivery man’s voice – he was trying to get to yet another restaurant to deliver even more dip – forced her to relent. He offloaded the cases of dip at her loading dock, which she shares with Comcast.

She was left with nearly 600 pounds of dip to pack into her car and haul to her commissary. Meanwhile, “I’m looking at the expiration date and it says March 26, which is a red flag. No company would send something with such a short runway to use it,” she said.

Lieberman made an Instagram video about the arrival of the unwelcome dip, which quickly caught the attention of local news stations and Heluva Good!’s official account, who asked Lieberman to reach out. A spokesperson instructed Lieberman to dispose of the dip, because the company also did not know its origins. After Lieberman’s dip plight went viral— it even made it into People magazine—more French onion dip-afflicted Philly restaurants emerged.

All Day Hoagies and Ice Cream discarded their 600 tubs of dip, though they tested it and determined it tasted “normal,” because “the company told us to trash it,” according to their manager. (Those who tasted the dip at All Day Hoagies are reportedly “fine.”)

Other restaurants shared the wealth. Ed’s Buffalo Wings and Pizza in University City received two identical, enormous shipments of dip last week and gave it out to customers. Social media users commenting on Mac Mart’s post reported that their Palace of Indian DoorDash orders arrived at their houses with free tubs of Heluva Good! French onion dip.

Heluva Good! is a brand of dips, condiments, and cheese owned by HP Hood LLC, a manufacturer based in Lynnfield, M.A. When contacted for comment, group vice president Lynne Bohan wrote, “We are aware of a third-party promotion that resulted in a shipping error involving Heluva Good! Dip. Our team is looking further into this and has been in contact with the parties affected.”

It wasn‘t the first time that a large packaged food brand had contacted Lieberman, the owner of Mac Mart (which recently moved from its Rittenhouse storefront to a kiosk near the Four Seasons Hotel). “But there’s a protocol to partner with these huge retail brands. And none of [our exchange] followed that,” said Lieberman, who blocked the email sender as soon as she felt harangued by the persistent emails.

“As soon as red flags started to appear, I stopped communication, never confirming receipt or approval,” said Lieberman.

Brands commonly use third-party promotional companies to distribute samples and market their products. “There are lots of reasons that food can be short coded (when products’ expiry dates are deemed ”too soon" and they need to be redirected from traditional retail markets) —over production, rejected at a loading dock, a delayed shipment due to weather, and so on,” said Dr. Jonathan Deutsch, a food scientist at Drexel University.

“Especially for a refrigerated product like a cheese dip, it is important to ensure that the cold chain is maintained at all times. A receiving team should make sure that the product arrives at the proper temperature, is free from damage, and that the date is within range for sales expectations. Restaurants who purchase food from a vendor assume responsibility for that food and, when purchasing from a vendor, there is a clear chain of custody that goes back to each ingredient in the dip,” said Deutsch.

Should unexpected pallets of dip continue to appear around Philly, Deutsch said, “In this case, I do not recommend that restaurants accept this mystery dip. It could have been time and temperature abused in transit, could be mislabeled (fraudulent) or have other problems associated with it (for example, unlabeled allergens) that resulted in its not being able to be sold. A good rule of thumb for restaurants is to never donate anything that you can’t vouch for or wouldn’t eat yourself; and never sell anything you don’t stand by.”

Rebecca Foxman, the co-owner of Fox & Son Fair Foods at Reading Terminal Market, had also received the unsolicited emails from a company named Geezy asking to drop off “40 boxes (12 units/box of Heluva Creamy Sauce Dip FREE SAMPLES to your restaurant.” There were three emails in total, which were reviewed by the Inquirer. The emails arrived weekly through February and were sent by a “senior business development manager” named Shubha C Nayak whose email signature contained a physical address in Bangalore, India. They were riddled with spelling errors, such as a subject line announcing “Complementary [sic] Samples.”

Foxman ignored all the emails – “they seemed off,” she said.

The Inquirer’s calls to Geezy’s American contact phone number went unanswered.

But not every single massive dip delivery had quite so many red flags. Puglia Pizza Philly on South Street, a new pizza place that opened within the last year, received an entire pallet of dip about four days before the Super Bowl, an event where a massive dip promotion makes sense (they had been contacted by both the sampling company Brandshare and Geezy to receive samples, though they were shocked at the quantity they received). Thankfully, they did have the walk-in refrigerator space to fit 600 tubs of dip. They saw it as a way to treat their customers.

“At first, I was shocked, but since it was Super Bowl Sunday, I thought maybe we could use it to our advantage,” said co-owner Heather Tricarico. “It’s really good dip – I checked all the packages, they were all sealed with plastic, with proper expiration dates. We made space for them in the walk-in and the customers have been very happy. I can only imagine if I received 600 tubs of dip and had nowhere to put it.”

Tricarico posted the promotion on Instagram, tagging Heluva Good!’s official account, which acknowledged the giveaway and thanked her.

“We recommend dipping your pizza crust in it. It’s been quite the hit!” said Tricarico, who has since also received samples of Gourmet Garden garlic paste from the same promotional companies, to share with her customers (though thankfully, not a pallet’s worth).

Puglia Pizza still has 100 tubs of French onion dip to distribute. “We made the best out of a Heluva Good! situation,” quipped Tricarico.