(Ocean Robbins) In the early 1980s, the California Raisin Advisory Board had a big problem. There were a lot of raisins produced every year, and not much demand. According to the board’s own market research, most consumers considered raisins “dull and boring.” And the usual methods of produce marketing weren’t making a difference: no amount of raisin recipes placed in homemaker magazines, raisin fairs, raisin seminars, or Raisin Queen beauty contests had moved the needle on Americans’ indifference toward the dehydrated grapes.