A child has died after choking on a small toy that was hidden inside a Kinder Surprise chocolate egg.
The three-year-old girl was with her mother in the French city of Toulouse when the wheeled toy became trapped in her airway.
“The child’s grandfather arrived quickly and managed to extract the object”, but the girl had fallen into a coma and died on Saturday night in hospital, said a statement from prosecutor Cecile Deprade.
An autopsy confirmed “death following mechanical asphyxiation”.
The eggs, 30 million of which have been manufactured by the Italian company Ferrero since 1974, are not recommended for children under the age of three. Each egg contains a paper listing “choking hazard” warnings in multiple languages inside.
According to the Ferrero website:
“All Kinder Surprise toys are designed and developed with safety in mind, rigorously observing international regulations as well as extra safety criteria voluntarily adopted by the Ferrero Group,”
In 2000, the parents of three children in the United Kingdom, who died after choking on toys inside edible eggs, campaigned unsuccessfully for the products to be withdrawn from the European Union.
Kinder Surprise is banned outright in the USA, where the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act bans “the sale of any candy that has embedded in it a toy or trinket”.
What do you think, should retailers be allowed to continue selling chocolate that contains potentially dangerous parts? Let us know on Twitter @HerFamilydotie.
