Mutant Kinder Eggs Come to America

Joanna Andreasson

Thanks to a law banning candy that contains "non-nutritive objects," Kinder Surprise eggs were long prohibited in the United States. The toy they contained was considered an unacceptable risk. In early 2018, that finally changed—sort of. The new Kinder Joy looks similar from a distance but opens to reveal not a hollow chocolate egg but an egg-shaped plastic capsule. A pair of "wafer bites" in a sweet, creamy substance fill one half of the container; a tiny toy is sealed inside the other. A wrapper separates the two, and that apparently suffices to make the product acceptable to the American nanny state.