FRUIT importers claim their workers have nothing to fear from giant creepy-crawlies hiding in bunches of their finest imported bananas.

The claim by Southampton-based Geest Bananas is not a case of arachnophobia gone mad, but comes after a supermarket worker won a £7,500 pay-out after he was bitten by a huge tropical spider.

Wakefield-resident Malcolm Haigh successfully sued the company, along with his own bosses Morrisons, for physical and psychological damage four years after the eight-inch spider, believed to be a Huntsman, bit his cheek.

But the banana giant, based at the dock's Windward Terminal since 1993, has been quick to assure its 80 staff that they are in no danger.

Pointing to the rigorous picking, washing and packing procedure that is carried out at the bananas' source in the Carribean's Windward Islands, a spokesman for the company refuted any fears that poisonous spiders could find themselves carried into Southampton.

The spokesman said: "Every care is taken with the cutting, packing and unloading of the bananas and anything on them is removed.

"There has been no need to bring in new measures since this incident four years ago.

Here, in South-ampton the fruit is taken off the ships by forklift and only a small amount of people actually open the boxes to check them.

"They are then sent out of the county to ripening rooms where the natural gas is used to ripen the fruit.

"Nothing is likely to survive that process but even then another check is carried out."

The announcement will be welcome news to the city's banana workers, who previously became big news when a bizarre banana war broke out.

It took place between Europe and the US, threatening job losses in the city.

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