A tribute to Justin Vitrano, a true gentleman

By all accounts, Justin Vitrano was a giant in the Baltimore wholesale produce industry almost from the time he could walk in the 1930s until the COVID-19 pandemic caused him to curtail his regular trips to the office.

Vitrano was born Sept. 8, 1928, in Los Angeles and he died on July 14, 2024 at the age of 95 in the Baltimore area where he had spent all but the first six months of his life. He spent just about as long with the Tony Vitrano Co., the wholesale operation started by his father in 1932, and run by Justin Vitrano from the 1970s until he passed the baton to his son, Tony, about two decades ago.

“My father always had a great relationship with our suppliers,” said Tony. “Before COVID, he was still coming to the office two-and-a-half days a week and calling those same suppliers. In fact, he kept in touch with some of them until the very end.”

Tony relayed that his grandfather started the company in his own Baltimore basement cutting celery and delivering it to local restaurants. The company gradually grew, and by the late 1930s it was located in a warehouse near the Inner Harbor. In the 1940s, the Tony Vitrano Co. established a house on the old Baltimore Produce Terminal, alongside many other wholesalers.

By this time Justin Vitrano was working after school, weekends and summers in his father’s operation. “He always told us he started coming down to the market when he was 5 years old,” Tony recalled.

He also noted that his father was a good student and “a really good baseball player.” In fact, he was a standout player in high school and then at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, from which he graduated in 1950. He did get a tryout with the Brooklyn Dodgers and could have gone to the Minor Leagues, but Tony noted that Justin was making more money ($30 per week) working full-time for his father and decided to pursue that more lucrative and stable career. He remained an ardent baseball fan for all of his life. He had season tickets to the Baltimore Orioles and never missed an opening day from 1954 to 2019.

He and his brother, Norman, both worked for their father in the Baltimore Market throughout the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s. In 1975, the Baltimore produce industry moved to the Maryland Wholesale Produce Market in Jessup, MD, which was 15 miles down the road in suburban Baltimore. Tony recalled that the company was a bit reluctant to move, but did go along with the industry and it proved to be a very good decision, as the firm has thrived ever since.

By that time, the original Tony Vitrano was in his 70s and cutting back his workload. “My father and his brother were running the show,” said Tony, noting that his father was the president.

While he remembers his father handling many different jobs from buying to selling to running the office, he said his favorite pursuit was talking business with their suppliers, most of whom were from the West Coast. “He would go to the PMA, United and WGA conventions every year. He had lots of friends and loved seeing them.”

Tony revealed that the Tony Vitrano Co. specialized in being the Baltimore wholesaler for a lot of product from California, Texas and Florida, but especially from the West. Tony said the company has expanded its representation of East Coast product in recent years, but western vegetables still command a lion’s share of their total volume. “My father worked with most of the big companies — Bud Antle, D’Arrigo. In those days everything was sold by phone or to walk-ins.”

Matt McInerney, who spent his career as a senior executive at Western Growers Association until his retirement a handful of years ago, remembers Vitrano as a constant presence at the WGA convention, hanging with all the people of his vintage who built and advanced the western vegetable industry. “He had great relationships with all of them. He was a consummate gentleman and a delightful person,” McInerney said. “As a wholesaler, he had a phenomenal reputation. In those days, shippers would send carloads to the East Coast on a consignment basis. The Vitrano Co. was known as an honest handler and could be counted on for a fair return. Justin was a salt of the earth kind of guy with high integrity.”

Mark McBride, who recently retired from Coastline Family Farms in Salinas, CA, spent his career selling lettuce and other western vegetable across the country. “Regardless of the situation at hand, Justin kept his cool and always worked toward an agreeable solution to issues. I don’t think I have ever met a more even-tempered person; and in this stress-inducing business that trait is a rarity,” he said.