ESCANABA — Tracy Thompson, owner of Hiawatha Chef Supply of Escanaba and Appleton, is among nearly 450 who attended Excell Marketing and Procurement Group’s 2018 Annual Conference last month in Tucson, Ariz.

The Wild West-themed conference attracted representatives of 119 dealerships and 125 manufacturers to the JW Marriott Tucson Starr Pass Resort and Spa April 10 to 14. Thompson met with individuals from each of the manufacturers exhibiting at the event, and went to Excell’s annual dealer meeting. He also competed in the corresponding Cooking Up Better Lives (http://cookingupbetterlives.org/) charity golf tournament on the championship courses at the resort’s Starr Pass Golf Club.

Hiawatha Chef Supply has been a member of the Denver, Colorado-based Excell Marketing and Procurement Group since 2005. The company is a three-time winner of the organization’s Excellerator sales awards–taking trophies in 2011, 2015 and 2017–and a winner of its Excellathon 2016-2017 dealer purchasing promotion. Its purchase volume puts Hiawatha in the top half of the leading North American foodservice equipment supply dealers enrolled in Excell.

Next year’s Excell Annual Conference will be held April 9 to 13 at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa in Austin, Texas.

Hiawatha Chef Supply, Inc. is a foodservice and janitorial equipment and supplies distributorship founded in Escanaba, Mich., in 1955. It now has stores in both Escanaba and Appleton, Wis., and can be found on the Internet at www.hiawathachef.com. The company is a member of the Foodservice Equipment Distributors Association, Excell Marketing and Procurement Group, ISSA: The Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association, the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, and the Tavern League of Wisconsin.

Excell is the nation’s leading foodservice equipment and supplies dealer network.