Celebrity businesswoman Heather Mills will reveal her plans for the North East at a major manufacturing event.
Ms Mills, who launched vegan food empire VBites 25 years ago, is set to be keynote speaker at this year’s EMCON event, the biggest engineering and manufacturing conference in the region’s business calendar taking place in October.
Over the last year Ms Mills has expanded her international award-winning plant based vegan company VBites by opening two sites in the North East, taking the total to four sites across the 海角视频.
Ms Mills’ original manufacturing site is located in Corby, Northamptonshire, which has 100 staff, with an additional allergen free plant in Benton, which employs a further 42 people.
Last year VBites purchased the former Walkers Crisps factory in Peterlee and has earlier this year she added to the portfolio with the former Coty factory in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland, which has established VBites as the leading pioneer in plant-based foods.
She also now owns the largest vegan manufacturing facilities in the world totalling more than 600,000 sq ft.
Organisers at the Engineering and Manufacturing Network (EMN) announced Ms Mills’ appearance, saying she will give an insight into her entrepreneurial journey by outlining her plans for the area, why she chose to extend her vegan empire in the North East and her thoughts on the future of the business and its plans for growth.
She will also take part in this year’s industry leaders’ panel debate, organised by EMN in conjunction with Jackson Hogg Recruitment, the event’s delivery partner. The debate will include a question and answer session which enables the audience to participate.
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David Land, who is chairman of EMN, said: “There’s been a huge and understandable level of interest from the business community around the opening of the VBites manufacturing facility in Peterlee so we’re delighted to have secured Ms Mills as our keynote speaker at EMCON 2019.
“It’s a real coup for our event to secure someone of Ms Mills’ profile and will certainly generate a new level of excitement around the event.
“We’re also delighted to confirm that Ms Mills will participate in the panel debate and question and answer session over lunch. This has been a popular addition to EMCON however with Ms Mills as part of the line up, we expect tickets to be booked up very quickly as people are genuinely interested in what she has to say and her plans to grow the vegan business in our region.”
This year’s EMCON event is being held on Thursday, October 10, at the Xcel Centre in Newton Aycliffe.