Portadown firm wins King’s Award for Innovation
7th May 2026
A Portadown-based company has been recognised with one of the UK’s highest business honours, after winning a King’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation 2026.
Express Merchants Ltd, founded in 2017 and based in County Armagh, is one of just 185 organisations across the UK to receive the award this year.
The business is believed to be one of the first from County Armagh to win in the Innovation category, recognising the success of its platform Breeze: Procure with Ease.
The company was built around a simple idea — solving a problem experienced daily across the Facilities Management industry, where engineers were losing hours each week travelling to find basic materials needed to do their jobs.
That idea has since grown into a platform now used by major Facilities Management providers including CBRE, ISS, Mitie and Aramark, helping teams work more efficiently while reducing unnecessary travel and improving oversight of day-to-day spending.
Despite its rapid growth across the UK and Ireland, Express Merchants continues to operate from Portadown, with plans to expand further while creating opportunities locally.
Tim & Helen Jameson, Business Owners, said:
“This is a hugely proud moment for us, not just as a business, but as a team based here in Portadown.
We didn’t set out to build a tech company — we set out to fix a real problem we experienced ourselves. To see that idea now being recognised at this level, and being used by major organisations across the UK and Ireland, is incredibly rewarding.
We’re proud to be building something from here that is making a real impact, and this award gives us even more confidence to keep pushing forward.”
The King’s Awards for Enterprise are the UK’s most prestigious business awards, recognising outstanding achievement across innovation, international trade, sustainability and opportunity. Winners are entitled to use the official King’s Awards Emblem for five years.
