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Kinder Egg To Make Debut Stateside, Ending The Candy's Yearslong Ban

Taylor Rock|

The Kinder Egg is finally making its American debut this month with the introduction of Kinder Joy. The egg-shaped confectionary is made up of two plastic compartments — one featuring a small toy and the other layered in milk and chocolate creams and two cocoa cream-filled wafer balls.

"Kinder Joy is a fun, new way to help parents bring little surprises to their kids anytime they want," Paul Chibe, chief executive of Ferraro, which will distribute the candy, told Food Business News. "The delicious, unique taste of Kinder Joy and the wide variety of toys will delight kids, while Mom and Dad will be surprised by the high quality of the confection and toys — it's unlike anything currently on the U.S. market."

While Kinder Eggs are widely available in other countries around the globe, the brand has never found its way to shelves stateside. The Food and Drug Administration disallows candies that contain a "non-nutritive" object because it "may pose a public health risk as the consumer may unknowingly choke on the object."

This topic was brought to light following October's mass-shooting in Las Vegas. To raise awareness about gun control, TV personality Piers Morgan tweeted a photo of the egg-shaped candy and wrote, "These are banned in America because they're a 'health hazard.' Semi-automatic rifles are legal. #vegas"

Morgan actually tweeted a photo of a classic Kinder Surprise Egg, a similarly-themed product that has been sold since 1974. There is a crucial difference: The Surprise Egg contains a toy within a chocolate shell rather than in a separate compartment as with the more recently developed Joy. That distinction ameliorates concerns that small children could choke on the toy after too eagerly devouring the candy.

The Surprise Egg remains banned in the U.S., much to the chagrin of its devoted cult following. The Kinder Joy Egg will be sold nationwide at grocery, drug, and convenience stores for $1.59 per egg starting sometime in November. The product will also be available for a discount price exclusively through Walmart at $1.34 per egg on Black Friday.

Kinder Joy also lacks the Surprise's iconic plastic capsule, which means this creative Twitter user from England would have to find a different case for her false eyelashes if she lived in the U.S.

For more chocolate-covered fun, read these surprising facts about your 20 favorite candy brands.

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