Nearly 300 businesses from across the East of England and beyond visited Stansted Airport’s 17th annual Meet The Buyers event.
A record total of 46 private and public sector buyers, with a combined purchasing power of £200m, supported this year’s event,including Essex County Council, BEUMER Group, National Express, the NHS, the University of Essex and VolkerFitzpatrick as well as Stansted Airport.
Brad Miller, recently appointed chief operating officer at Stansted, said: “London Stansted is a successful and growing airport and we have exciting plans to redevelop our facilities to cater for increasing passenger numbers and to improve the airport experience.
“We’re also committed to working in partnership with our local community and are keen to ensure that local businesses can share in the success of this exciting new chapter in Stansted’s development.
“This is where Meet the Buyers can really help by connecting buyers with suppliers in a convenient and time efficient way and creating a unique opportunity to generate new business.
“It is estimated that last year’s event alone generated £4.7m in new sales for local businesses. We are very proud of this achievement and this year we’re focusing on ensuring that suppliers get to meet as wide a range of businesses as possible, including our procurement team and key suppliers, who procure a significant number of services at the airport.”
During the event, Stansted’s transformation director, Paul Willis, delivered an update on the airport’s multi-million pound transformation plans.
“Over the next five years we have committed to a significant investment programme which will see the biggest upgrade in passenger facilities at the airport since the new terminal opened in 1991,” he said.
“As part of the plans we will be constructing a new £130 million arrivals building, revamping our existing terminal and enhancing passenger services to allow the airport to handle more than 35 million passengers a year.
“We want to enable local firms to get involved in this exciting phase of the airport’s development, so early next year we will also host a special Meet the Buyers to share more details about the opportunities for businesses to be part of the airport’s supply chain.”
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