Ferrero have requested that my daughter discontinue selling eggs to the United States so unfortunately this source has dried up.
Since launching this web site in 1996, I have received many requests about where Kinder Surprise eggs can be obtained in the US. It may come as a surprise to many of you that although Kinder Surprise eggs are available at almost any corner store all over the world, they are not available in the "Land of the Free". There has been considerable speculation about the reasons for this but the consensus seems to be that they are not allowed because there is a law against putting things inside candy.
In looking for Kinder Surprise sites, I once came across a list of material confiscated that week at the port of Seatle -- a load of Kinder eggs was on it!
However, just because Kinder Surprise eggs can't be obtained "over the counter" in the USA, doesn't mean that they can't be imported. There is a lot of small scale traffic in the little delights. People talk of making Kinder runs across the border just like during Prohibition. Some people have sources of eggs in Germany and judging by some of my correspondence, I wouldn't be surprised that Kinders are being carried to the US via military transportation. Many Americans are first exposed to Kinders while they are stationed in Europe.
If you are reading this, you are probably already aware of both Kinder Surprise eggs and the goodies found therein. When I first saw them back in 1988, I couldn't get over how ingenious some of the toys were. Children, of course, love them because
What made them so appealing to me was that you got to put the toys together like a model plane, often complete with decals. Soon my brother and I were collecting like crazy and comparing new finds on a weekly basis. The excitement created by the large number of different toys and the absolute ingenuity of some was extremely addictive. When we got our first transformers, we couldn't believe it -- imagine, a little put-together transformer as small as an egg! So far, the toy with the most pieces was a little building with 22 pieces including decals. Although I haven't seen any transformers for a while, Ferrero keeps coming up with over 100 new toys every year.
Although it may seem extravagant, at a dinner party with mostly adults we will often open a whole case (24). Everyone busily builds their toys and then compares what they have got. With a children's party the excitement of having a whole box is of course much heightened. In our house, if one of my daughters gets a new one, she runs away and hides so that no one else can see it until it's been completely assembled. Somehow the excitement of prying apart the plastic shell and discovering its contents never pales.
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