US-based poultry processing and distribution company Sanderson Farms has opened a new $155m processing plant and wastewater treatment facility in St Pauls, North Carolina.

The new 180,000ft² facility will accompany the existing 65,000ft² hatchery in Lumberton, as well as a feed mill in Kinston, making it the company’s 11th fully integrated poultry processing facility in the US.

"Sanderson Farms’ new deboning facility will have a greater accessibility to the East Coast market, as well as provide 1,100 jobs to the St. Pauls community."

The company claimed that its new facility features the latest technology in the poultry industry, including food safety, employee welfare and environmental conservation.

It will utilise a mechanical wastewater treatment system for recycling wastewater located on a neighbouring 1,500-acre area owned by the company.

The poultry complex will have the capacity to process 1.25 million birds a week for the big bird deboning market and annually sell nearly 500 million pounds of dressed poultry meat.

Sanderson Farms’ new deboning facility will have a greater accessibility to the East Coast market, as well as provide 1,100 jobs to the St. Pauls community, in addition to 100 contract growers.

The firm has 1,600 employees in North Carolina.