King Kullen names Tracey Cullen president

King Kullen Grocery Co. said it has promoted Tracey Cullen, the great-granddaughter of the chain’s founder, to become its new president and chief operating officer.

She succeeds Joseph Brown, who recently announced his retirement after 53 years with the Hauppauge, N.Y.-based retailer. Cullen joined her family’s company in 2010 and most recently had been senior VP of operations. Before that she held a series of roles with increasing responsibility, including VP of marketing and VP of corporate strategy and initiatives.

Prior to joining King Kullen, Cullen had been an attorney with law firm Epstein Becker & Green, according to her LinkedIn page.

“It is an incredible honor to assume this role at a company that has meant so much to my family for four generations,” said Cullen. “Growing up, I witnessed firsthand the values that continue to define King Kullen, including hard work and a deep commitment to the communities we serve across Long Island.”

Cullen is the great-granddaughter of King Kullen founder Michael Cullen and the daughter of former King Kullen Co-President Brian Cullen. Her uncle, James Cullen Jr., currently serves as chairman. She is the first woman to serve as the retailer’s president.

She also serves on the King Kullen board of directors and its executive committee and is a member of the board of directors and executive committee of Long Island Cares and the board of directors of the Long Island Association.

Cullen’s appointment follows the recent promotion of three other executives: Frank Vassallo, Chris LaBella and Andrew Wasserman.

King Kullen, which opened its first store in 1930, is recognized by the Smithsonian Institution as the first true supermarket in the United States. Michael Culllen, who was a veteran of the Kroger Grocery & Bakery Co., opened a store in Queens, N.Y., that was the first to combine self-service grocery with discounted prices and separate departments for meat, produce and shelf-stable grocery items. (Piggly Wiggly, which opened its first store in 1916 in Memphis, Tenn., was the first self-service grocery in the nation.)

King Kullen, which remains controlled by the Cullen family, currently operates 28 stores on New York’s Long Island, including four Wild By Nature natural and organic grocery stores. In 2018, King Kullen had agreed to be acquired by Ahold Delhaize’s Stop & Shop division, but the two companies called the deal off in 2020, attributing the cancellation to “unforeseen changes in the marketplace … largely driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.”