Company Background
Twenty years ago Leon Leykin designed a vending machine that freshly cooked a hot dog, separately warmed the bun, and delivered the assembled American classic in less than a minute. The machine took many years to design and develop and about 150 machines were sold prior to the 2008-2009 financial market collapse that shrank the US Vending Industry by half resulting in Leon’s original company (LHD Vending Systems) to close their doors.
The original HD3000 Machine had many loyal customers. One of the original HD3000 machines has continuously delivered freshly cooked hot dogs at Fenway Park in Boston. Since 2009, the HD3000 has dispensed over 70,000 hot dogs.
Since the original company’s closure, Leon never lost sight of the hot dog vending machine’s potential and was determined to re-enter the vending machine market. While the original machine reliably delivered a delicious hot dog he identified several areas of the machine that could be improved. In the past few years, Leon has worked on the design and improving portions of the machine operation based on the experience he gained from his first machine. All the improvements make the machine easier to us and will improve the ROI for the Machine Operator.
During the HD4000 design process, Leon created a new company, LFC systems, and asked Rick DiAntonio to join as co-founder and operations lead. Over the past years, the two co-founders have completed the design, and led the construction and testing of HD4000 prototypes.
Check out our latest News & Updates article featuring LFC Systems' prototype display at the 2023 NAMA Show in Atlanta!
Co-Founders
Rick DiAntonio Co-Founder and CEO
Rick leads overall operations of the company. He has over 40 years of successful engineering and process manufacturing experience. Rick’s positions included project engineering, maintenance management, continuous improvement, construction management and plant management. He worked with Leon when he managed Erachem Inc.’s Baltimore Operation and there he learned of Leon’s invention genius and engineering ability. Just prior to founding LFC Systems, Rick developed experience in the food industry where he successfully completed various projects for McCormick & Company.
Rick possesses an entrepreneurial spirit and immediately recognized the great business potential offered by Leon’s design. He decided to invest his time and money to develop, manufacture and market the second-generation hot dog vending machine and build LFC Systems as a leading provider of innovative fresh cooking options.
Leon Leykin Co-Founder & CTO
Leon invented the hot dog vending machine, and leads all technology development for LFC Systems. Leon’s love of freedom drove him to emigrate from the Ukraine to the United States about two years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the Ukraine he worked for the country’s largest vending machine developer designing, servicing, and fixing many different machines including ones that dispensed cooking oils, packaged fruits and vegetables, and that sold beer.
In the US, he worked for 10 years as a Manufacturing Engineer for Fusion System Corporation. While working at Fusion he came up with the idea of a hot dog vending machine. In 2000, he left Fusion, began working full-time on his first-generation machine and formed LHD Vending Systems, that ultimately delivered 150 machines to the marketplace. After the collapse of the vending machine market in 2008-2009, Leon closed the doors of LHD Vending Systems and waited for the opportunity to engineer an improved machine. In 2021, Leon and Rick DiAntonio founded LFC Systems with the quest of designing and producing vending machines that cook fresh foods using innovative technology.