The present work aims to optimise chicken skin gelatine/carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) blended film formulation at varying concentrations of CMC and plasticiser (glycerol). The influence of CMC and plasticiser concentrations on the mechanical (tensile strength, TS and elongation at break, EAB) and physical (water vapour permeability, WVP) properties of chicken skin gelatine films were studied using central composite design (CCD), a full factorial design with all combinations of the factors at two levels (high, +1, and low, −1 levels), with the centre points (coded level 0) repeated thrice. An optimised formulation obtained as a proportional mixture of CMC (3%) and glycerol (0.78%), with tensile strength of 0.08 MPa, elongation at break of 167.57 and water vapour permeability of 6.08 × 10-9 g m-1s-1Pa-1. A formulation with 3% CMC and 0.78% glycerol yielded high TS and EAB, but lower WVP, which is desirable for production of food packaging. This novel research offers the packaging industry an alternative source for producing biodegradable food packaging films which are more cost-effective and at the same time reduce environmental problems.