Candy racks may contain an unwelcome "Surprise"

As merchants remove the last remnants of leftover Valentine's Day candy from their shelves and replace it with Easter treats, shoppers should be aware that there may be a hazardous, illegal product mixed in with the marshmallow bunnies and creme-filled eggs. Kinder Surprise eggs, made by Italy's Ferrero Group, are hollow chocolate eggs containing "surprise" toys. The eggs are popular worldwide; there's even a thriving collectors' market for some of the rarer toys. However, Surprise Eggs have been banned in the United States since 1997, when the Consumer Product Safety Commission warned that the toys could pose a choking hazard to children under 3. (That same year, Nestle voluntarily withdrew a similar product, Nestle Magic.) Kinder Surprise also falls afoul of a provision in the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which prohibits embedding "nonnutritive items" in confections.

Despite the ban, which is fully honored by Ferrero's U.S. arm, Surprise Eggs are widely available here, with many imported by companies specializing in foods from countries where the product is available legally. The eggs pictured above, for example, come from Poland, and were purchased for $1.59 each in a suburban New York gourmet food store. A Consumers Union staffer recently confirmed they were available in a German specialty store in the Washington, D.C. area. They are also widely available along the U.S.-Canadian border, since they're legal in Canada. Surprise Eggs are also easily purchased on the Internet, from ethnic importers, candy merchants, and, until recently, even from Amazon.com, which offered Surprise Eggs sold by a Greek importer through its Marketplace program (the products were sold and shipped by the importer, but Amazon provided the e-commerce infrastructure, and they showed up as part of a search on Amazon.com).

What to do: If you see Surprise Eggs on sale at a local or online store, you can notify the CPSC. (The agency contacts vendors and warns them that Surprise Eggs are illegal, though the sheer number of merchants carrying them means that some will inevitably slip through the cracks.) And if you really want to surprise your kids this Easter, you can consider getting them candy and toys separately. Mixing the two, especially when the toy is embedded inside the candy as it is with the Surprise Egg, sends a mixed message about what is and isn't edible, and puts younger children at risk.