For more than 55 years Grangetto’s Farm and Garden Supply has been an
integral part of the community; supplying San Diego’s North County Gardeners and Growers with the products they need, supporting local high school ag programs, 4-H projects, Master Gardeners, local Garden Clubs and civic organizations, and simply being there to answer your farm & garden questions. Surviving in a changing environment hasn’t always been easy and the only constants in Grangetto’s business have been its loyal customers and the need for change.
From humble beginnings in Escondido, at 122 E Washington Ave. (site today of an auto parts store) the store moved in 1956 to its present location at 1105 W. Mission, next to the city’s historic ice plant known as The Orange House (and today, sadly no more, replaced by main post office), Grangetto’s became something of a landmark itself in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, when Escondido was considerably smaller.
Grangetto’s started with 3 employees. Today there are 55 employees, and in addition to the main warehouse in Escondido, there are 4 retail stores in Escondido, Valley Center, Fallbrook and Rancho Santa Fe.
Edward Grangetto Sr. founded the business in 1952 by supplying crop oils and fertilizers to the agricultural community. The family patriarch was born in Duncan, Arizona in 1915, moved to Escondido, where he attended high school. He started off working for Bennett Investment Co. in 1931 as a laborer, making about $2 a day, trapping gophers, planting and harvesting vegetables, maintaining the orchard, and driving a tractor. Bennett managed hundreds of acres of farm land in North County.
Ed Grangetto attended UC Davis from1934-38 and earned a degree in horticulture. He returned to Escondido and to Bennett for one year before deciding to go off on his own with a grove management business. He started with $600.
These plans were sidetracked slightly by his marriage in 1940 to Josie Ann Dunn, and derailed for the duration by WWII, where he served in the Army Air Force until November of 1945. During the war his brother-n-law helped run the grove management business.
In 1948 Grangetto added pest control to the business, and in 1952 he bought out an oil business that sold weed and tree oils.
In the early 1970s local agriculture was changing and avocados became the boom crop of the area. In response to the change, the business expanded to include other products, such as chemicals and farm hardware. Ed Grangetto Sr. ran the business until 1975, when his son, Eddie Grangetto Jr. joined him in managing the business. With urban encroachment during the 1980s Grangetto’s expanded the number of stores and their product line to include irrigation products and materials needed by golf courses, municipalities and professional landscape maintenance companies. Eddie and his father ran the business together until Ed Senior’s retirement in 1982.
Seven years later in 1985, Eddie’s brother Kevin joined him in the business. In 1999 Kevin and Martha Grangetto purchased the business from Eddie and became the new owners of Grangetto’s.
Kevin graduated from San Marcos High School in 1979. He went on to the University of Riverside and in 1984 he received a Bachelor of Science in Entomology. In 1985, Kevin received his Master of Science in Pest Management.