Tom Smith sounds as though he’s making a clean break with Food Lion. Friendly, but clean.

‘‘I’ve always been of the opinion that when you change managements, it shouldn’t be a blend,’’ the retiring president and CEO said in a telephone interview Wednesday night. ‘‘I’ve done everything I know to do for this company. ... Now it’s time for new management to take over.’’

That’s quite a concession coming from a man who started at the first Food Town store as a 19-year-old bag boy and rose to become president by the age of 39.

Now Smith is one month away from 58. He had planned to retire at 55, he said, but kept waiting for the right moment. Record earnings, record sales and ‘‘record everything’’ at the close of 1998 made him feel that time had come.

He’ll empty out his desk this week, eager to do something else.

‘‘I’ve worked at Food Lion a long time,’’ Smith said. ‘‘Now I’m into my 29th year, going from 6 in the morning to 7 at night. That’s the way I like to work. I enjoy it.

‘‘But I want to spend more time with Martha,’’ he said of his wife, ‘‘and my parents. And next week I’ll have a second grandchild.’’

He doesn’t say anything about slowing down. That’s never been part of Smith’s make-up.

Food Lion co-founder Ralph Ketner, in a 1988 interview, said the young Smith stood out from the start.

‘‘He worked at full capacity,’’ Ketner said. ‘‘Tom was the type person that you didn’t have to tell him what to do. But if there was something that you told him to do he’d never complain. He would do it – to complete satisfaction.’’

Smith worked at Food Town stores through his years at China Grove High School and Catawba College, at one point managing a Kannapolis Food Town store while he was a student. After graduation, he set off to see different sights. He worked for Del Monte Foods for six years in five different cities in Florida and the Carolinas.

By 1968, Food Town had coined the LFPINC motto – Lowest Food Prices in North Carolina – and was growing so fast that Ketner was in desperate need of more buyers. Fast, efficient buyers. And he remembered Tom Smith.

Ketner arranged to meet Smith at the Holiday Inn at 6:30 one morning and offer him a job – not just as a buyer, but as the company’s future president.

‘‘There was a challenge there that I felt like I’d like to take on,’’ Smith later reflected, ‘‘a little larger than any I’d had before.’’

He went from buyer to head of warehouse operations to president of Save-Rite Corp. (Food Town’s warehouse subsidiary), vice president, executive vice president and – in April 1981, one month before his 40th birthday – president.

He followed in Ketner’s footsteps when it came to starring in the company’s TV commercials, and was a smiling regular on Food Lion’s float in the Holiday Caravan and other parades.

He and Martha also became stars of sorts in the local philanthropic realm. Over the past 10 years they have made large donations to the South Rowan YMCA, Catawba College, the Meroney Theater, the Salisbury Station and other causes that comprise Rowan County’s non-profit backbone. Smith chaired the Catawba College Board of Trustees, co-chaired the State Volunteer Summit, helped get the Draft Dole movement started for Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina this year.

While his public role appeared to be growing, though, Smith apparently was also privately laying the groundwork for retirement. Anybody’s who’s going to retire should plan for it, he said.

‘‘The other thing I wanted to do was make sure I was leaving Food Lion at a good point.’’ As the company’s 1998 numbers became final, and 1999’s first quarter remained strong, ‘‘I thought, ‘This is a good time.’|’’

He didn’t have to worry about leaving the company in good hands, he said.

‘‘Bill McCanless is ready and capable,’’ he said, and has a good team of people like Joe Hall backing him up. ‘‘Part of my whole job was of course to prepare so I could leave without skipping a beat.’’

So what will he do?

‘‘I’ve been doing some planning. I have a couple of small businesses I want to be just a little more involved in.’’ He owns Piedmont Farm and Yard on Klumac Road, and has part ownership in Hampton Inns in Salisbury and Mount Pleasant, S.C.

‘‘And I’ve set up my place out here,’’ he said, referring to his farm off Chandler Road in western Rowan County, where he breeds and raises exotic animals like zebras. ‘‘I have a lot of things to do, projects that I just have never done.

‘‘Martha has said all along she wouldn’t mind having some help.’’

Martha Smith still works as an accounting clerk at Food Lion, as she has for about 20 years. She’ll continue that, Tom Smith said.

The retirement decision has made her happy, he said. ‘‘We have a great relationship, but we haven’t had much time to enjoy it,’’ he said. They married in 1988. (Smith’s grandchildren are from a previous marriage.)

He met with all the company’s vice presidents Wednesday to announce his retirement and asked them to meet with employees to pass his plans along. It was a day of mixed emotions.

‘‘You’re happy that you’re at that point in your life where you can do that and look forward,’’ Smith said of announcing his retirement. ‘‘But you’re sad.... I’m leaving something that was, what, 12 stores when I started. I’ve worked with a lot of great people.

‘‘I realize that the people I’m leaving are really the ones responsible for the success of Food Lion.’’

Instead of picking out proud moments, Smith said he was most satisfied by how Food Lion had grown. The chain now includes 1,223 Food Lion and Kash n’ Karry supermarkets in 11 Southeast and mid-Atlantic states. ‘‘We’re now one of the nation’s largest supermarkets.’’

The other thing he enjoyed was seeing people achieve their goals.

He wouldn’t mention any disappointments, and had a quick response when asked if the ‘‘PrimeTime’’ episode was a low point.

‘‘That’s a high point now that the company has stayed so strong,’’ he said. ‘‘We worked our way out of it.’’

There was speculation at the time that Food Lion might go through changes at the top, but Smith hung on.

‘‘That was a tough time,’’ he said, ‘‘but that wasn’t a time to be leaving. That was the time to work harder and make things happen.’’

His goal now is to exit Food Lion headquarters so McCanless can run his own show. Smith told his executives he’d help any way he could, but he did not want a position on the board of directors. He didn’t seek any kind of consultant status.

‘‘I didn’t want to put that burden on Bill – plus I want to enjoy myself.’’

His retirement becomes effective ‘‘as quick as I wrap everything up – I guess this week.’’

But there’s one more message he wants to get out.