Ferrero introduced the Kinder Surprise chocolate egg in 1974.
Kinder Surprise, also called Kinder Sorpresa in some markets, is a hollow chocolate egg containing a small toy enclosed in a plastic capsule. Ferrero developed it as part of the Kinder brand, whose name comes from the German word for “children.”
The egg's combination of chocolate and a toy made it distinctive among mass-market confectionery. The toy is kept separate from the chocolate by the capsule, but the product has faced regulatory restrictions in some countries because of rules concerning non-food objects inside food.
The United States is the best-known example: federal law has historically restricted confectionery containing a non-nutritive object embedded inside it. Kinder Joy, a related product with separate edible and toy compartments, was introduced for markets with different safety requirements.