Father and Son Team
The original business was started in Roanoke, Virginia in 1932, as a distributorship selling peanuts for Tom Huston Peanut Company, a Columbus, Georgia corporation. Tom Huston’s name was changed to Tom’s Food since 1966 after being purchased by General Mills.
The Roanoke, Virginia distributorship for Tom’s Foods was purchased in 1979 by James F. Spikes, Jr. (Jimmy), the third owner. After graduating from Troy University in Alabama, Jimmy started his career in the corporate office of Tom’s Foods in Columbus, Georgia, working in plant management, industrial engineering, and cost accounting. Jimmy was transferred to Salem, Virginia as the assistant plant manager at one of the Tom’s Foods potato chip plants.
The distributorship was incorporated in Virginia as S&W Tom’s Distributors, Inc., selling Tom’s snacks and potato chips through vending machines and direct store delivery in Roanoke and the surrounding area . S&W Tom’s partnered with Coke-Cola and Pepsi-Cola to sell drinks, along with Tom’s snacks and potato chips in the 1980’s.
S&W Tom’s was providing snacks and drinks for a large Roanoke company for their office employees. A request was made by this company that S&W Tom’s also service their plant facilities with food, snacks, drinks, coffee, and ice cream. S&W Tom’s agreed and began evolving into a full line vending company. S&W Tom’s started by selling prepackaged sandwiches, which was typical of what full line vending companies were using at the time. Not pleased with the prepackaged food quality, Jimmy and his wife, Amber, started making fresh sandwiches in a small kitchen inside the distribution warehouse. The word was getting out that S&W Tom’s was making fresh food daily and from that point on the company transitioned into what is now, the largest independent full line vending company in Southwest Virginia. In 2002, S&W Tom’s started trading under the name Deli-Matic to emphasize the diversity of their products.
After graduating from Roanoke College, Shane Spikes joined the family business. Shane has been past President of Virginia Automatic Merchandising Association, a member of the Atlantic Coast Exposition Board (which encompasses SC,NC, and VA), VAMA VENDOR of the Year 2014, and elected to the National Avanti Advisory Counsel. Shane has helped upgrade the company technologically and implemented a new concept for break rooms called self service mini- markets. These mini-markets enabled Deli-Matic to offer even more of a variety of fresh foods, salads, fruit, snacks, ice cream, drinks, and coffee to their customers.
Deli-Matic is a member of the National Automatic Merchandising Association, the Virginia Automatic Merchandising Association, and
was nominated for Small Business of
the Year 2014.
Deli-Matic is a family owned business celebrating over 40 years of bringing quality products at a fair price to customers and friends.
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