Steggles has lodged a $24.9 million development application for a new cold storage building at its Beresfield plant, more than triple the size of its current facility.
Steggles Poultry, which is part of the Baiada group, has submitted plans with Newcastle council for the new facility due to "inefficiencies, size restrictions, age and dilapidated state of the existing frozen store".
The planned building has a floor space of 6,280 square metres with a storage capacity of up to 6336 pallets, compared to the existing frozen store which has a floor area of 1,938 square metres and can hold 1900 pallets.
The proposal appears to be a turnaround from January, when Baiada wrote to Hunter and Central Coast growers about the "possibility of cessation of production of birds" at the Beresfield plant. Baiada said at the time there had been no decision to close the Beresfield plant and may not be any such decision.
Baiada did not respond to requests for comment.
According to the proposal's statement of environmental effects, the current frozen store is "insufficient" to keep large volumes, meaning products are taken to an external warehouse for additional sorting, packing and distribution.
"This process is inefficient and adds additional labour and transport costs to the business," the statement said. "Further, double handling of food products is not considered best practice as it introduces additional control points, and risks which need to be managed before the product reaches the end user."
Product would be transferred via a new enclosed tunnel linking Steggles Foods to the frozen store. The existing storage shed, a maintenance/storage shed and 36 trees would be removed to make way for the building.
The applicant said the number of staff would remain the same at 14, as would the heavy vehicle trips, at 16 per day.
A previous development application proposed a frozen storage and distribution facility with floor space of 22,110 square metres and capacity for 29,120 pallets, but it was withdrawn.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on the Newcastle Herald website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. Sign up for a subscription here.
