POLICE investigations into allegations of fraudulent practice at the collapsed Dundee firm Alpine Foods are likely to be lengthy. An inquiry began last month on the orders of the procurator fiscal.

The Wester Gourdie site is now owned by Dundee Cold Stores, a consortium of farmers, who bought the firm out of administration.

Police are investigating a period last year when the firm was under its previous ownership. It had been suggested by sources close to the firm that the inquiry could be hampered by the lack of a “paper trail.”

One complaint surrounds alleged interference with Scottish Water-owned metering equipment, which was designed to track the freezing and processing plant’s trade effluent output. A second complaint alleges theft of peas and beans belonging to other companies and which Alpine had been contracted to process and freeze.

So far, no one has been charged in connection with the allegations, though Tayside Police have confirmed they are investigating a local business.

A police spokeswoman said, “Inquiries are continuing and they are likely to be quite lengthy.” The police inquiry was launched about a month after a group of workers, sacked when the firm went into administration, took a complaint to Scottish Water concerning metering equipment.

Last summer, Alpine was made the subject of an interim interdict after the operators of Hatton wastewater plant at Carnoustie alleged the company was pumping out twice the legal limit of trade effluent, a by-product of the pea process.

An agreement was later reached in talks with Scottish Water, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Catchment, operators of Hatton.