Sun-Maid Growers of California is a cooperative

Cooperative

A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...

 of raisin

Raisin

Raisins are dried grapes. They are produced in many regions of the world. Raisins may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking and brewing...

 growers headquartered in Kingsburg, California

Kingsburg, California

Kingsburg is a city in Fresno County, California. Kingsburg is located southeast of Selma at an elevation of 302 feet , on the banks of the Kings River. The city is half an hour away from Fresno, and two hours away from the California Central Coast and Sierra Nevada Mountain Range...

. It was founded in 1912 as the California Associated Raisin Company. As a cooperative, Sun-Maid is owned by family farmers who grow raisin grapes all located within 100 miles (160.9 km) of each other in the Central Valley of California, midway between Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 to the south and San Francisco to the north.

History

Once raisins were established as a marketable crop

Crop

Crop may refer to:* Crop, a plant grown and harvested for agricultural use* Crop , part of the alimentary tract of some animals* Crop , a modified whip used in horseback riding or disciplining humans...

 which grew and dried well under the California sun, raisin grape area expanded rapidly in the late 19th century. The earliest efforts to form a successful cooperative business to be owned by raisin growers started in 1898. But the cooperative did not become a reality until 1912 when the entire community supported the establishment of the California Associated Raisin Company. In 1915, the brand name SUN-MAID was launched, and within a year, executives of the company discovered a local girl, Lorraine Collett Petersen

Lorraine Collett

Lorraine Collett Petersen was an American model hired to promote a corporate trademark as the "Sun-Maid Girl".Lorraine Collett was born to George Dexter Collett and Martha Elizabeth Falkenstein in Kansas City, Missouri...

, a seed planter and picker from Fresno, California

Fresno, California

Fresno is a city in central California, United States, the county seat of Fresno County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 510,365, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 34th largest in the nation...

 whose smiling face, red sunbonnet, and tray of fresh grape

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

s would become synonymous with sun-dried California raisins.

By 1918, facilities had become inadequate for the rapidly growing enterprise. The company opened a new facility near downtown Fresno, which was recognized at the time as the "finest factory

Factory

A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...

 building west of Detroit."

In 1964, further modernization

Modernization

In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...

 of processes and growth of the cooperative lead to the construction of, and move to, a new facility in neighboring Kingsburg

Kingsburg, California

Kingsburg is a city in Fresno County, California. Kingsburg is located southeast of Selma at an elevation of 302 feet , on the banks of the Kings River. The city is half an hour away from Fresno, and two hours away from the California Central Coast and Sierra Nevada Mountain Range...

. This new location was voted one of America’s top new plants by Factory Magazine that year.

The print image was updated in 1956 and again in 1970, using drawings made a decade earlier of model Delia von Meyer (Pacheco).

Today

In 2006, the iconic Sun-Maid girl was brought to life through computer-animated television commercial

Television advertisement

A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...

s in which she walks and talks for the first time in her history. The commercials were designed and produced by Synthespian Studios.

Today, Sun-Maid is the largest raisin

Raisin

Raisins are dried grapes. They are produced in many regions of the world. Raisins may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking and brewing...

 and dried fruit

Dried fruit

Dried fruit is fruit where the majority of the original water content has been removed either naturally, through sun drying, or through the use of specialized dryers or dehydrators. Dried fruit has a long tradition of use dating back to the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia, and is prized...

 processor worldwide, and offers a full line of dried fruit products such as prune

Prune

A prune is any of various plum cultivars, mostly Prunus domestica or European Plum, sold as fresh or dried fruit. The dried fruit is also referred to as a dried plum...

s, apricot

Apricot

The apricot, Prunus armeniaca, is a species of Prunus, classified with the plum in the subgenus Prunus. The native range is somewhat uncertain due to its extensive prehistoric cultivation.- Description :...

s, cranberries

Cranberry

Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right...

, apple

Apple

The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...

s, dates, tropical fruits, fig

Ficus

Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes, and hemiepiphyte in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The Common Fig Ficus is a genus of...

s, and many others. The company sells its products to consumers and industrial

Industry

Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...

 customers in more than 60 countries around the globe, and maintains extensive brand licensing and food service operations.

The Promotion in Motion Companies, Inc., under license from Sun-Maid, also produces a Sun-Maid Milk Chocolate Covered Raisin.