Bill Konyk, who brought Ukrainian food to Vancouver and successfully fought to maintain his company’s name, Hunky Bill’s, despite objections that it was an ethnic slur, died on Aug. 13 in Ladner, British Columbia. He was 88.

His youngest son, Mark, said the cause was cancer.

Mr. Konyk was a sales manager for a Vancouver radio station in 1967 when he bet a friend $10 that he could get a booth at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver to sell Ukrainian food, which his family had trouble finding in the area. He succeeded, and his company has been a mainstay at the fair ever since, selling pirogies (sometimes spelled perogies), kielbasa and cabbage rolls.

Mr. Konyk eventually opened numerous restaurants and retail outlets in the Lower Mainland under the Hunky Bill’s name. He also bought the Dover Arms pub in the West End neighborhood of Vancouver.

Hunky Bill was Mr. Konyk’s self-adopted nickname and the trademark for his pirogi , restaurant and retail businesses. The name prompted a formal complaint in 1980 by the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association under the British Columbia Human Rights Code. The group said the word “hunky” was an ethnic slur historically aimed at people from Central Europe.