Official UK procurement notice
PRE-MARKET ENGAGEMENT QUESTIONNAIRE (PME) for CAT-26-002 Sustainable Catering Disposables and Packaging
Authority: the Education Authority (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionThis is not a tender exercise by the Education Authority. The Education Authority Northern Ireland (EANI) wishes to engage with the market to seek their views on establishing a robust, value for money contract for the provision of sustainable catering disposables and packaging products . Any information gathered through this market consultation exercise will inform internal business planning and any possible subsequent procurement process and will NOT be appraised in any future tender evaluation exercise. Please note that participation or non-participation in this preliminary market consultation exercise shall not prevent any supplier from participating in any potential procurement process, nor is it intended that any information supplied shall place any supplier at an advantage or disadvantage in any forthcoming procurement process. For the avoidance of doubt, this is the scoping phase of the project and is not part of a formal procurement process. Suppliers who wish to participate in the market engagement exercise should complete the pre-market engagement questionnaire. Further information including the questionnaire can be downloaded from CfT documents. The Questionnaire must be completed and PME Document signed and returned via the Messaging function of eTendersNI by no later than 3pm on Wednesday 21 October 2026 (deadline) in accordance with the instructions detailed in the PME Questionnaire document. There are no formal tender documents to be completed other than the questionnaire.
CPV: Catering supplies · Disposable catering supplies
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1Lot 1PlannedRenewal
- Extensions
- Extension options published
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Goods
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- No (one-off requirement)
- First published
- 6 Oct 2026, 16:08 BST
- Last source update
- 6 Oct 2026, 16:08 BST
- Authority reference
CAT-26-002- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Not published
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-0781fa
How it was run
- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
4 published dates · Europe/London- Planning notice publishedjust passed6 Oct 2026, 16:08 BST
- Market engagementin 15 days21 Oct 2026, 23:59 BSTPRE-MARKET ENGAGEMENT QUESTIONNAIRE (PME) for Sustainable Catering Disposables and Packaging products for the Education Authority. Interested suppliers are asked to complete and return the questionnaire.
- Tender notice expectedin 97 days11 Jan 2027, 23:59 GMT
- Contract startsin 237 days1 Jun 2027, 00:00 BST
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published6 Oct 2026, 16:08 BSTUK2
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (1)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender