Dollar General will appoint new CEO with background in grocery

Dollar General, the ubiquitous discount chain with more than 20,000 locations across the US, is getting a new head honcho at the start of 2027. The company announced on Tuesday that CEO Todd Vasos will serve out the rest of the year and then step aside for outside hire and grocery industry veteran JJ Fleeman Jr.

Vasos was a longtime Dollar General employee with a background in drug stores, while Fleeman has spent the last 36 years at global grocery chain Ahold Delhaize, which owns US supermarket chains Food Lion, Giant, Hannaford, and Stop & Shop.

• Vasos served as CEO from 2015 to 2022 and then from 2023 to the present, and first started at the company in 2008 as a division president and then as chief operating officer.

The company commended Vasos for his role in building out Dollar General’s supply chain, including developing an internal distribution network for frozen and refrigerated goods called DG Fresh, and for guiding the chain’s international expansion into Mexico.

Vasos also notably stepped in when the company was in need. Less than a year after retiring for the first time in 2022, he returned as CEO to replace his successor, Jeff Owen, in order to “restore stability and confidence in the company,” David Rowland, Dollar General’s chair of the board of directors, said in a statement.

The announcement that Dollar General is bringing on an executive with a background in grocery comes just a few weeks after the retailer told shareholders about an initiative to grow the non-grocery side of its business. Per its latest earnings call, the company plans to increase sales of nonconsumable categories and to create more of a “treasure hunt” experience at its stores. In addition, it revealed that sales growth in nonconsumables had outpaced consumables in Q4.