Will adding a sour kick get millennials to eat raisins?

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 SunMaid Growers. A 39-yearold with a deep marketing background who has spent most of his career in Chicago, Overly was brought in to shake things up.

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.

Overly said raisins suffer from what he calls an “lifespan 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.

Overly admits he was cautious about taking the job. After all, he had climbed his way up the corporate ladder of several major food companies in Dallas and Chicago. Kingsburg, Calif., and Sun-Maid weren’t exactly on his radar.

He wondered if SunMaid was willing to take risks.

To do that, 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.

He estimates that raisin consumption has dropped about 10 percent over the last five years, in part because Sun-Maid has not invested in growing the business.

To help reverse that trend, Overly brought in some new talent for his marketing team, 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 fruit juice and no added sugar. The snacks were actually launched about 18 months ago, but Overly gave it a makeover, including new packaging and placement on the all important snack aisle instead of the dried fruit aisle. The raisins are made in watermelon and strawberry flavors.

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 SunMaid raisins represent.