Raisin maker fights a shriveling market

Sun-Maid Raisins is easily one of the most recognizable brands in the United States. But even the company's iconic red bonnet-wearing farm girl hasn't been enough to keep this century-old cooperative from losing touch with consumers, especially younger ones.

Harry Overly vows to change that.

Overly was hired last year as the president and chief executive of Sun-Maid Growers. A 39-year-old marketing whiz who has spent most of his career in Chicago, Overly was brought in to shake things up in raisin land.

For the first time in more than 10 years, Sun-Maid will launch a national campaign next year focused on rekindling consumers' fondness for the brand. Research shows consumers react favorably when they hear the words Sun-Maid. Now it's up to Overly and his team to leverage that into new sales.

His goal is $100 million in growth over the next three to four years. Stay tuned for new products, new advertising and an elevated presence in the grocery store.

"During our research we heard comments from people who said: raisins are the bridesmaid but never the bride, or it's like mustard, you eat it on a hotdog but never alone," Overly said. "Raisins are not a top of the mind snack."

Overly said raisins suffer from what he calls a "life span problem." What that means is that parents feed raisins to their young children when they first start eating solid food, but once the child reaches school age, they want other things in their lunchbox.

For more than 30 years, the venerable company was dutifully run by Barry Kriebel, who provided steady and pragmatic leadership. For years, it served Sun-Maid well. Growers earned a decent profit and consumers loved the brand.

The problem was that while the brand's logo was well known, people began eating other more interesting and tastier snacks. Sun-Maid was losing market share and worse, wasn't even on the minds of millennials, the much-coveted group of emerging consumers.

"Our kids aren't thinking about raisins anymore," said Jeff Jue, chairman of Sun-Maid's board of directors. "We need to make Sun-Maid more relevant."

Overly started by changing the culture at Sun-Maid. He got tired of people describing the company's sluggish sales as "managing the decline" or thinking of packaging as being just in a box.

"People would say that we just don't do that around here, but that kind of thinking has to change," he said. "There was such a fear of failure in this company that they became risk averse."

To help reverse that trend, Overly brought in some new marketing talent, including creating a new role, vice president of insight and innovation. He hired longtime colleague Lana Simon from Chicago to be his key asset.

Simon will oversee the relaunch of a new flavored sour raisin snack made with natural juice and no added sugar. The snacks launched about 18 months ago, but Overly gave it a makeover: new packaging and placement on the all important snack aisle instead of the dried fruit aisle. The snack comes in watermelon and strawberry flavors.

Healthy snacks are a growing segment and appeal to both millennials and baby boomers, the core of Sun-Maid's customers.

Simon said consumers can expect to see raisins combined with other healthy ingredients. Simon and her team also plan to roll out ads that play on the nostalgia and trust Sun-Maid raisins represent.

"The brand brings back so many fond memories for people, " Simon said. "We talked with millennials who told us that when they have kids they want to feed them Sun-Maid raisins, just like their mom did, because they also want to be good parents."

Longtime Sun-Maid grower Paul Locker of Selma said the industry has been shrinking over the past decade as more growers rip out their vines and replace them with higher value crops, like almonds and tangerines. Since 2000, raisin acreage in the San Joaquin Valley has plummeted from 270,000 to 150,000.

New raisin grapes that are being planted are being done to accommodate mechanical harvesting, a labor-saving method of picking, but costly to install. "We have been able to grind out a living, but it is expensive," Locker said.

He is hopeful that Overly can help revive the Sun-Maid brand and boost sales.