Return of Nature's Candy.

The title of this post refers to the campaign for raisins, that at one time starred a young Molly Ringwald. You can read more about this and other raisin-related issues in a post for two years ago here.

But today I am looking into another issue about the dried grape situation. (If prunes can be sold as Dried Plums, why aren't raisins Dried Grapes?) This issue was related to an interesting take in the news last year about raisins: Millennials have stopped buying them. This, from Fast Company:

In 2017, [raisin] farmers’ crop prices sunk to their lowest level in several decades, down 31% from the year prior. In fact, for the very first time, California forfeited the title of world’s leading producer of raisins–to Turkey. Raisin farmers now look to grow more profitable crops, such as almonds....
     The number-one raisin brand in America is not content to wither away like . . . you know. It has a plan to woo newer generations, many of whose last interaction with the brand centered around packed school lunches. Sun-Maid has released a new ad campaign–its first in a decade–and bold new products to target a growth goal of $100 million within five years.

Sun-Maid is not just advertising for raisin' awareness (har!), but is also introducing new snacks that they think will appeal to different age groups. The latest are the Sun-Maid Bites, specifically the Birthday Cake flavor I sampled recently.

As regular readers may know (they have a high tolerance for boredom), I have sampled many things labeled "birthday cake" or "birthday" flavored, meaning yellow cake with white icing. Like a lot of them, these bite-size pieces, about the size of a half dollar if half dollars were square, and if anyone remembered half dollars, don't taste all that birthdayish. They're fine, though, and good enough to be kid-tastic, but I think most kids prefer a fruit type snack that's more like a gummy or a cookie. This is actually not that sweet, and is pretty chewy. I think a better snack for an adult than a kid, then. It's more like a chewy energy bar, and could easily have been sold that way.

Maybe it should have been. as one is tempted to eat the whole bag. Thus one is going to consume more calories and more of those sweet. sweet raisins than one would if it were sold by the bar.

The Sun-Maid Bites also come in S'mores, PB&J, and Banana Split flavors. I'm willing to try them all, but of course Banana Split is a sentimental favorite.

Good luck to you, Sun-Maid. I've always enjoyed raisins, although the market these days seems to be comprised of only little kids and little ol' folks. I'm somewhere in the middle -- at least for now.