By Ewan Pate, farming editor

NEGOTIATIONS TO secure the future of the Alpine Foods Ltd facility on the Kingsway, Dundee, are at a crucial juncture.

Businesses with produce in the cold store have been advised they should be prepared to move stocks out by next Friday in the event of the premises not being sold as a going concern.

Alpine Foods Ltd, which took over the site from Christian Salvesen Ltd in 2001, was placed in administration on January 15.

It is one of the most advanced vegetable processing and freezing plants in the UK and last summer it is believed to have processed 21,000 tonnes of produce from the fields of Tayside and Fife.

Around 30 staff were employed when the administrators were called in, but 11 were immediately paid off.

In a letter faxed to stockholders yesterday Toby Underwood of administrators BDO Stoy Hayward said, “Whilst I continue to negotiate with potentially interested parties, it may be that I am not able to sell the business as a going concern.

“If I am not able to sell the business as such it will have to be closed and the cold stores decommissioned.”

It is understood that stocks are relatively low but moving large amounts of frozen food to other locations in the UK would be expensive and logistically difficult.

The effects of decommissioning the cold store would be dramatic. Cold stores on this scale are essentially caverns of permafrost and if they are allowed to defrost, the internal structures are likely to collapse.

However, there is still some hope. A spokesman for BDO Stoy Hayward last night said, “I know that many livelihoods depend on the existence of this plant and nothing would please us more than to be able to sell it as a going concern, but it has to be at the best possible price for creditors.”