In Central Valley, where raisins reign, concern over a tart upstart Reporting from Fresno - The adversaries are plump and wrinkled. The victory each seeks is domination in the muffin mix, in the cereal box, on top of your salad. An outright fruit snack smack-down between raisins and Craisins has erupted, with millions of dollars at stake for California's Central Valley raisin industry and its cranberry counterpart, based mainly in the East and Midwest. Beneath the conflict lie serious questions about what constitutes "real" food. Raisin growers this year will pay $5 a ton to finance a $1.5-million anti-Craisin campaign. A "Let's Keep It Real" website was launched last Friday, featuring a video of shocked and dismayed mothers "learning the truth about Craisins." Ocean Spray, the growers cooperative behind the Craisin craze, plans to host the Craisin/Raisin Challenge taste test in grocery stores nationwide in March, pitting raisins against caloric-equivalent Craisins, which now come in original, blueberry, cherry and pomegranate flavors. For those not up on their dried-fruit distinctions: a Craisin is a cranberry split in half, dried and injected with sugar. It was introduced in 1989 by Ocean Spray, which has created an ever-expanding line of all things cranberry. A Craisin is in no way a raisin, something the raisin industry says is a common misconception. Cranberries are grown primarily in Wisconsin, Massachusetts and New Jersey A raisin is a grape dried in the sun - nothing else. The name comes from le raisin, French for grape, but they've been around longer than the French. One legend holds that Noah nibbled them on the ark. All the nation's raisin supply (and a third of the world's) is grown within about 50 miles of Fresno. In the nearby city of Selma, which bills itself as the raisin capital of the world, young women are already vying to see who will be crowned Raisin Queen at the Raisin Festival in May. When Craisins first appeared on the scene, California's grape growers had ideas for better things to call them. They're copycats! Why don't they call them cranberries, or cranbots, or cranbogs? They grow in bogs, don't they? Ernest Bedrosian of the National Raisin Co. asked at the time. It was the era of the California Dancing Raisins - claymation crooners whose stick legs and raisin bodies grooved to a Motown rhythm. Raisin growers protested that Ocean Spray was trying to cash in on a name the raisin industry had elevated to pop culture status. After all, California Raisins sang with Ray Charles. They released their own albums. The growers asked the California attorney general to file suit, but Ocean Spray already had the trademark. Now, more than 20 years later, it's far more than the name that rankles. In December, Dustin Fuller, a field representative for the Raisin Administrative Committee, took his girlfriend to Disneyland, where he planned to propose. He returned with the happy news that she'd said yes, but also foreboding tales of how many Craisin kiosks dot the Magic Kingdom. There were Craisin stands, kids eating Craisins. It was just Craisins, Craisins everywhere," said Fuller. Elsewhere, towering pallets of Craisins and raisins sit next to one another in Costco and vie for a lunch box spot. There are recipes for Craisin-oatmeal cookies and carrot Craisin salad. In the beginning, Ocean Spray's hopes for the Craisin were modest. They were to join raisins in a granola cereal and perhaps be sold to industrial baking companies as an ingredient. But sample snack packets the company gave away proved popular, and Craisins were marketed as taste treats to eat by the handful. As raisin sales held steady or took slight dips, Craisin demand grew. Market research showed that in 2010, raisin consumption dipped 2.4% from the year before while Craisin sales rose 13.4%.