Representatives from Penrith firm Trade Copiers attended a paper trade fair in Germany.

Managing director Stephen Armistead and account managers Ashley McCall, Adam Lympany and Mark Armistead attended the Paperworld exhibition in Frankfurt and met hundreds of industry contacts.

Mr Armistead said "Paperworld is the largest meeting place for the printer consumables industry and our business has grown to a level where we really needed to have a presence at the 2018 exhibition.

"I’m very happy to say its been a huge success and the opportunities in front of us to work with these new companies is enormous.

"We will definitely be back next year, bigger and better."

In 2010, the company diversified and Trade Copiers is now one of the leading suppliers of products such as toner cartridges, drum units, and fuser units.

Specialising in manufacturers including Ricoh, Canon, Sharp, Konica Minolta and Kyocera, it supplies the office equipment industry across the UK and Europe.

It recently started work on a £500,000 expansion at its Gilwilly Road headquarters and said 2018 was a time for it to futureproof its business by investing in infrastructure and people.

It has bought the building next door, formerly occupied by Hospice at Home, which it will convert into extra office space.

Two other extensions will give the company space to create a testing and refurbishing area to house the technical team and more copier machine storage area.

This, the company said, will allow it to expand and upgrade the loading area leading to an increase in the volume of containers shipped from the depot by 30 per cent.