A Passion and a Vision Give Birth to a Brand: Ten Years Later, Granite Gold® Brand Stone-Care Products Available Throughout the U.S. and Internationally

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--International Home and Housewares Show; Booth N6450 — It all started with questions Lenny Sciarrino and Lenny Pellegrino could not answer comfortably.

“What should I use to clean my stone?”

“What should I use to clean my stone?” the two Lennys were often asked by customers when Sciarrino was leading operations at the family business, European Wholesale Countertops, and Pellegrino was running his stone restoration business – Pellegrino Stonecare.

“There really wasn’t anything in the market we could recommend with confidence. Common household cleaners will damage natural stone, and anything marketed specifically for use on stone either left streaks and fingerprints or wasn’t readily available for our customers to easily purchase,” said Sciarrino, co-founder and president/CEO of Granite Gold Inc. “Mild dish soap and water was all we’d recommend, and it still wasn’t the best answer.”

In the late 1990s, Pellegrino began experimenting – looking for an answer to the oft-repeated question – and a few years later he came up with a solution that was safe on all stone surfaces and would not streak or leave fingerprints. In 2003, he formed Granite Gold Inc.

“We were filling bottles and handwriting ‘Cleaner’ or ‘Polish’ on them, giving them away after we finished restoration and installation projects,” said Pellegrino, Granite Gold Inc. co-founder, who still runs the restoration company and is on job sites daily. “We had an answer to their questions, one we were totally confident would protect the stone surfaces our customers pay a hefty price to install and restore.”

That soon led Sciarrino to partner with his cousin, Pellegrino, in 2004 and bring Granite Gold brand stone-care products to a mass consumer audience.

With a small start and local distribution in the San Diego area and conducting numerous how-to demonstrations at regional home and garden shows and in Costco club stores, Granite Gold Inc. led a national consumer awareness campaign on the dangers common household cleaners pose to natural stone surfaces. That catapulted word of mouth and burgeoning online sales in Granite Gold’s early days, and today Granite Gold brand stone-care products are available in grocery, hardware, mass merchant and specialty store channels throughout the U.S. and internationally.

“It really started out as just an idea to create a product to help customers of our installation and restoration businesses. Little did we know back then we were building a widely recognized brand known for great stone-care products and educating customers on proper stone care,” said Sciarrino. “Ten years later, we’ve more than doubled our product line-up, expanded distribution along multiple channels in every U.S. state and have grown to include international distribution.

“Customers recognize Granite Gold as the experts in stone care, from the performance of our products to our Ask The Experts customer service program, where we provide professional advice and answer questions on all-things stone.”

About Granite Gold Inc.

Granite Gold is the brainchild of cousins Lenny Sciarrino and Lenny Pellegrino, whose grandfather moved to the United States in the 1950s, bringing with him an Italian heritage synonymous with expertise in the stone industry that he passed on to generations. For more information, including product images, visit www.granitegold.com.