The cartoon characters who normally inhabit your grocer’s cereal aisle are on the move.

Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants and the Disney and Sesame Street gangs are among the many children’s favorites who in recent years have taken up residence in the produce section.

Which is why parents now can tempt their tots with Dora edamame, SpongeBob broccoli and Winnie the Pooh apples.

The folks behind these licensing deals say plastering produce with popular characters is win-win – growers and retailers see sales boom, the companies that own the characters extend their brands, and children are encouraged to eat good foods.

Until about five years ago, the few recognizable brand names in the produce section didn’t exactly inspire clamoring by children. Meanwhile, the cereal and snacks aisles were a riot of collaborations with cartoon and movie characters.

But as concern about child obesity has grown, food companies have faced mounting pressure from regulators, Congress and parents to end the aggressive marketing of sugary and fatty foods to children.

And that pressure has produced results. Eleven of the nation’s largest food and drink companies recently announced sweeping changes in how they market to young children, including limiting the use of licensed characters to healthy foods.

That has entertainment companies looking for new real estate in the grocery store, and fruits and vegetables are prime property.

“I’ve seen a significant increase [in licensing programs] in the last five years,” said Kathy Means, of the Delaware-based Produce Marketing Association. “A lot of it is being borne by efforts to market healthier products to children, because there is a childhood obesity problem and we know that eating right is a big component to fixing that problem.”

Borrowing from the cereal aisle playbook has been good for business.

At the Maine-based Hannaford Bros. Co. grocery chain, licensed produce outsells conventional by about 10 percent, said spokesman Ben Amato. The chain recently used Sesame Street characters to introduce a different variety of apple each month.