Wadeson Home Center to offer feed and grain supplies

WARWICK — When Brad and Melissa Pingel announced that they would be closing their longtime family business, Warwick Valley Feed and Grain, Bill and Marilyn Wadeson, owners of Wadeson Home Center, and their son Craig, who manages the firm, decided it was time to expand the store’s extensive line of products to include feed and grain.

The company already carries a large selection of pet foods and other similar items.

“I’m sorry to see Brad and Melissa close,” said Bill Wadeson, “and I didn’t want to see that type of family business go away.”

Wadeson, however, believes that his business, which is still affiliated with Southern States, one of the nation’s largest farmer cooperatives, which also owns Agway, is best equipped to service local farms and others who purchase animal and poultry foods.

Filling the vacuum caused by the closing of Warwick Valley Feed and Grain has an interesting historical twist.

A different time Wadeson Home Center, now on Forester Avenue, first opened its doors in 1930 at 29 West St., the same address as Warwick Valley Feed and Grain. At that time it was H. Quackenbush & Sons with Howard Quackenbush, who was Bill Wadeson’s grandfather, as proprietor.

“No one would recognize Warwick as it was in those days,” said Wadeson. “It was all farms. But we are fortunate that many of them are still here.”

In 1969 the business moved to 60 Forester Ave. Quackenbush had passed away leaving his brother to run the business for a short time. When his grandson Bill Wadeson retired as a Warwick Valley High School teacher in 1980, he took over the operation full time and he and his family have been running Wadeson Home Center, now a locally owned and operated Do It Best Store since those days.

‘We will deliver’ Although expanding the business to include feed and grain is just getting started, Wadeson believes he can attract new accounts and recapture those who are purchasing their supplies outside the local area.

“We have great products including the Triple Crown line for horses and our goal is to offer the freshest products, be price competitive and service customers to the best of our ability,” he said. “Southern States has been farmer owned since 1923. Sales and technical representative, Malinda Ferko, will be visiting local farmers to see what they need. And we will deliver it.”

For additional information call 986-2215 or visit www.wadeson.com.

- Roger Gavan