Poultry giant Baiada wants to increase the operating hours at its West Tamworth processing facility

Baiada Poultry has applied to Tamworth Regional Council to increase the daily processing limit at its Out Street facility from 120,000 birds to 140,000 birds a day.

The chicken processor won approval for a $203 million upgrade to double the capacity of its Oakburn facility on Gunnedah Road, Westdale last year, but work is yet to start due to "approval and construction delays".

The company says the additional capacity at Out Street is required to assist with growth and transition to Oakburn, which would have the ability to process three million chickens a week.

The increase would require an extra two-and-a-half hours processing time a day, Baiada Poultry's chief risk officer Elaine Dickson said in the Environmental Impact Statement submitted to council.

"It is anticipated that this proposed minor change will greatly reduce the need to process chicken on Saturdays going forward, although the occasional Saturday kill will still be required," she said.

Once the upgraded Oakburn facility is complete, Baiada plans to close its Out Street plant.

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If the increase is approved, the extra 20,000 birds a day would mean another 16 B-double truck movements each day.

These would occur during daylight working hours in the early afternoon, but no additional staff would be required, and there would be no change to general waste pickups.

The company said biodiversity and infrastructure impacts would be "minimal".

"Within the last seven years of operation there has only been a single reported odour complaint which was quickly resolved in January 2020," Ms Dickson said.

If the new hours are approved, the company is proposing a maximum daily water usage of 1600kL with a discharge of 1400kL.

With a global increase in demand for poultry meat, the company claims it has been left with "no current alternative" due to building delays at Oakburn.

"Increases in production that will eventually allow transition to the new site need to occur as soon as possible," Ms Dickson said.

It comes after Australia's biggest grower of broiler chickens, ProTen, won approval earlier this month to start farming on a portion of its Rushes Creek Poultry Farm near Manilla sooner, as market demand for poultry meat grows.

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