Deadly spiders in bananas, claims Rotherham shopper

Howard Jones (61), from Sunnyside, did his usual big shop at Asda on Aldwarke Lane last Friday but said when he was unpacking his shopping at home he noticed something strange on the side of one of the bananas.

“It looked like a white pimple right in the middle of it, about 6mm by 6mm,” Mr Jones said.

The upset shopper said he believed the white ball to be a spider’s egg and had rung Asda’s customer services to complain.

There have been many national media reports of eggs from the deadly Brazilian wandering spider being found on bananas which has forced supermarkets to close while pest control fumigate their sites.

“I was told to take them back to the store, but frankly I don’t want it in my car, or to ‘send it in the post’ – I haven’t heard anything as daft as that in my life,” Mr Jones said.

“What if it hatched, or hatched in the post?”

Mr Jones said he wanted the supermarket to come and pick up the banana, adding: “They should be checking their fruit and veg.”

After the Advertiser contacted Asda about Mr Jones’ complaint, the store agreed to send one if its vans to pick up the infected fruit and investigate further.

An Asda spokeswoman said: “We would like to reassure all our customers that these types of incidents are extremely rare and that we have robust processes in place for identifying pests.

“We’re sorry for how the customer was initially dealt with and this will also be investigated internally.”