That's when grandfather Leon Tiahnybik, left his native Europe, moved to Chicago and opened a sausage manufacturing plant called Leon’s Sausage Company, on the city's near west side.

Leon’s son, Irv Tiahnybik, took over the business in 1966 and grew it into a successful meat processing facility, featuring a full line of Leon's Sausage products that were available to customers throughout the Midwest.

In 1991, Leon’s granddaughter, Amylu and her husband, Richard 'Chico' Kurzawski purchased the company and became the third generation of family owners.

Amylu and Chico completed a major expansion 1992 with the purchase of Slotkowski Sausage, a company with a long history of producing high quality sausage products in the old-world tradition. They continue to expand the Slotkowski lineup with all-natural products under the brand Slotkowski Naturals.

In 1994, they introduced Amylu’s signature line of five gourmet all-natural chicken sausage products under the Sausages by Amylu  brand. While those first five flavors are still popular today, Amylu and Chico continue to add exciting new flavors to stay abreast of changing consumer trends.

In 2006, they created A.K. Gourmet to brand the intriguing gourmet products they were developing in response to growing consumer demand. You can find these tantalizing gourmet potstickers, empanadas and dim sum in some of the country’s finest catalogs and gourmet specialty food shops. And we are proud to feature the entire line right here.

In the summer of 2007, the company finally realized that the growing number of brands needed a “family” and created ATK Foods to give it an easily recognized corporate identity and to provide for the exciting new concepts Amylu is cooking up in the ATK Foods kitchen.