AMCON Appoints New Chief Executive Officer.

CHICAGO -- AMCON Distributing Company ("AMCON") (AMEX:DIT), an Omaha, Nebraska based consumer products company is pleased to announce that it has named Christopher Atayan Chief Executive Officer. William F. Wright, AMCON's founder, will continue in his role as Chairman of the Board. As previously reported, AMCON has internally reconfigured its internal management structure in a holding and operating company structure. The primary mission of the holding company is to focus on AMCON's broader financial issues, strategic planning and external corporate matters. This enables AMCON's senior operating executives to focus on the competitive issues in their respective industries.

"After 30 years with AMCON, and working with Chris on various projects for over 20 years, I have decided that now was the right time to pass the baton to Chris, the appropriate leader" said William F. Wright. "We have spent a considerable amount of energy at AMCON developing and implementing our new management structure. Over the course of the last seven months, we have seen that effort beginning to bear fruit. As the largest common shareholder in AMCON, I am very comfortable that the business will be vested in Chris' able hands. Chris has been closely involved with our organization since the late 1980s initially as our Investment Banker and more recently as an Officer and Director. He and I have will continue to work collaboratively in the future on the major issues and opportunities we face as a company."

"One of the things that first drew me to AMCON was the original competitive strategy, focusing on superior service, that Bill Wright had envisioned for the company, said Christopher Atayan. "We intend to continue this heritage of quality; it is an important component of our objective of realizing value for our shareholders. I have great respect for Kathy Evans and Eric Hinkefent, our two senior operating executives; they have proven their abilities for many years in a wide variety of economies and competitive conditions. Our business plan in the short and medium term is to continue to reduce debt and build our balance sheet strength while refocusing on generating earnings growth in our core businesses. In the longer term, we will opportunistically resume AMCON's growth trajectory internally from the additions of new retail stores and wholesale branches and externally from acquisitions. We believe our value added corporate strategy has important human resource benefits as well. AMCON's goal is to attract and retain the highest caliber executives in the industries in which we compete. Moreover, we want to be recognized as an organization where young people with talent have a bright future."

AMCON is a leading wholesale distributor of consumer products, including beverages, candy, tobacco, groceries, food service, frozen and chilled foods, and health and beauty care products with distribution centers in Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. Chamberlin's Natural Foods, Inc. and Health Food Associates, Inc., both wholly-owned subsidiaries of The Healthy Edge, Inc., operate health and natural product retail stores in central Florida (6), Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma (4). The retail stores operate under the names Chamberlin's Market & Cafe and Akins Natural Foods Market. Hawaiian Natural Water Company, Inc. produces and sells natural spring water under the Hawaiian Springs label in Hawaii and other foreign markets and purified bottled water on the Island of Oahu in Hawaii. The natural spring water is bottled at the source on the Big Island of Hawaii.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties and which reflect management's current beliefs and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, Company performance and financial results. A number of factors could affect the future results of the Company and could cause those results to differ materially from those expressed in the Company's forward-looking statements including, without limitation, availability of sufficient cash resources to conduct its business and meet its capital expenditures needs. Moreover, past financial performance should not be considered a reliable indicator of future performance. Accordingly, the Company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to all such forward-looking statements.

Visit AMCON Distributing Company's web site at: www.amcon.com