diff --git a/internal/start/start.go b/internal/start/start.go
index dd9ca740f..ae7afe4e8 100644
--- a/internal/start/start.go
+++ b/internal/start/start.go
@@ -502,7 +502,6 @@ EOF
 					// Ref: https://github.com/Kong/kong/issues/3974#issuecomment-482105126
 					"KONG_NGINX_PROXY_PROXY_BUFFER_SIZE=160k",
 					"KONG_NGINX_PROXY_PROXY_BUFFERS=64 160k",
-					"KONG_NGINX_WORKER_PROCESSES=1",
 					// Use modern TLS certificate
 					"KONG_SSL_CERT=/home/kong/localhost.crt",
 					"KONG_SSL_CERT_KEY=/home/kong/localhost.key",