Nadeau Poultry Farm in northwestern New Brunswick is laying off 175 people because it says a rival firm's contract with a Quebec company means it's no longer getting enough chickens for slaughter to justify their shifts.

Yves Landry, the general manager of Nadeau Poultry, confirmed the staffing cuts on Monday.

Nadeau Poultry's Maple Lodge, near Edmundston, employs 340 people, so Monday's announcement of a staff cut means almost half its staff are being laid off.

Nadeau officials are blaming the job cuts on Group Westco, a local rival company that they say is trying to drive Nadeau out of business.

Westco teamed up with the Quebec-based Olymel last year, and the companies plan to open a slaughterhouse in the north to compete with Nadeau. In the meantime, Westco is shipping its chickens to an Olymel facility in Quebec.

Landry said that decision has reduced Nadeau's business and led to the staff cuts.

"By doing that, then it affected the second shift that I have and partly my first shift also, so I won't have any chickens to be slaughtered for that shift," Landry said. "So, it's affecting 175 jobs."

Earlier this year, Canada's Competition Tribunal ruled Westco could not be forced to send its chickens to the Nadeau facility.

Nadeau argued Westco controls 80 per cent of the chickens in the province and shouldn't be allowed to take the poultry out of New Brunswick for processing.

It wanted the tribunal to force Westco to continue to sell its product to Nadeau, even though there was no contract between the two companies.

Nadeau is still trying to get the provincial government to enact a bill that would prevent Westco from shipping the poultry to Quebec for processing.