Ep 33: Dollar General & Milo's Tea - Rooted in Purpose, Scaling & Precision

Rooted in Purpose, Scaling with Precision: How Milo’s Tea and Dollar General Are Building a Modern Growth Story What happens when an 80-year-old beverage company with startup energy partners with a nearly 90-year-old retailer that is still finding new ways to innovate? You get a growth story built on shared values, customer obsession, disciplined experimentation—and proof that retail media can influence far more than clicks. In this SHeCOMMERCE Partner Spotlight episode, Cristina and Jacqui sit down with Mihira Rami, Vice President of Marketing at Milo’s Tea Company , and Natalie Ong, Head of Operations for the Dollar General Media Network , to explore how two deeply rooted Southern brands are working together to connect media, merchandising, customer insights, and leadership. The episode also marks an exciting SHeCOMMERCE milestone: more than 50,000 podcast downloads , over 1,000 LinkedIn followers , and a growing global community of women and allies helping shape the future of commerce. Two Heritage Brands with Startup Energy Milo’s Tea and Dollar General may have been founded generations ago, but neither company is operating with an old-world mindset. Milo’s began when Milo Carlton returned from World War II and opened a small Birmingham, Alabama, restaurant with his wife, Bea. Customers quickly fell in love with the restaurant’s freshly brewed sweet tea, creating the foundation for what would become a nationally distributed beverage brand. Today, Milo’s is available in approximately 62,000 retail locations across all 50 states . The company has grown from selling 6.4 million cases annually a decade ago to approximately 61 million cases—while remaining committed to the same principles that shaped the original product: listening to customers, using high-quality natural ingredients, and never sacrificing taste. Mihira describes Milo’s as an “80-year-old startup” : a third-generation, family- and woman-owned business that is scaling quickly without losing the authenticity that made consumers love it in the first place. Dollar General brings a similarly powerful origin story. Founded with a mission to make shopping simple and affordable, the retailer has evolved from its early single-price concept into a network of approximately 21,000 stores . For many customers—particularly those in rural and small-town communities—Dollar General is the closest, most convenient, and sometimes only nearby destination for everyday essentials. That commitment to accessibility continues through the Dollar General Media Network, where Natalie and her team focus on helping brands reach customers in relevant, useful ways that add to the shopping experience rather than disrupt it. When Media Moves Beyond Marketing One of the biggest lessons from this conversation is simple: Retail media should not exist in a silo. The Milo’s and Dollar General partnership demonstrates what becomes possible when media performance is connected to broader commercial decisions. Together, the teams used Dollar General Media Network campaigns to introduce Milo’s products to high-intent shoppers during meaningful seasonal occasions, including Easter, summer grilling, tailgating, and the holidays. Promotions, coupons, onsite media, and other formats helped drive product discovery, trial, and repeat purchase. But the campaigns did more than generate short-term engagement. They created measurable proof of customer demand. In 2025, programming supporting a new Milo’s item delivered the strongest incremental return the team had seen. That performance gave Dollar General’s merchandising team greater confidence in expanding the assortment and helped Milo’s secure additional listings, including its flavored lemonades. The result was not simply a successful campaign. It was a repeatable growth playbook: Test. Measure. Validate. Expand. Media insights informed merchandising decisions. Merchandising expansion created new opportunities for customer discovery. And stronger distribution