Sun-Maid Raisins Has a Bold Plan to Reinvent Itself. (Watch Out, Fruit Roll-Ups!) The storied company's new CEO is tackling a big challenge: a recognizable brand but a declining business.
By Jason Feifer
This story appears in the June 2019 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
Hear the story of Sun-Maid's changes on our podcast Problem Solvers.
Harry Overly got an unexpected call one day from Sun-Maid, the raisin company with the famous red box featuring a grapes-carrying girl. It needed a new CEO -- was he interested? "What is the appetite for risk?" he asked in response. Because Overly, a food industry veteran, knew the job wouldn't be easy. Two decades ago, American-grown raisins represented 45 percent of global raisin sales; today it's less than 20 percent. And Sun-Maid, which grows its product in California, had barely marketed itself during that time, which meant it had a lot of catching up to do.
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