A supermarket has imposed a limit on fruit purchases after a wholesaler went bananas for the store s low prices and emptied the shelves.

The Hollingbury branch of Asda in Brighton introduced the limit of 17kg of bananas per person after a wholesaler began regularly visiting the store and clearing it of the fruit.

The unknown buyer has been visiting the store between midnight and 5am to buy large numbers of boxes of the fruit. Asda says the problem has become so bad that the store has been selling out of bananas by 4pm almost every day.

An Asda spokeswoman said: "He has been buying five or six boxes of bananas a day. It was completely hitting our supplies with him buying such a huge quantity.

"He s been coming in and buying them because they are cheaper than how much he can get them for anywhere else.

"The limit we've given to our customers is 17kg which is the equivalent of 200 bananas per person. I don t know of anyone who comes in and buys 200 bananas, unless you keep monkeys."

Store staff broke the news to the wholesaler when he tried to make yet another mass purchase of fruit. He got around the rule later by returning to the shop with his wife and two children so each could buy a box.

The spokeswoman said: "We don't want to stop him from shopping with us but we've got to make sure our other customers don't lose out."

Retailers say bananas have never been cheaper. The price of the fruit has halved since 2002. Asda sells bananas at just 68p per kg.

Mark Stables, manager of wholesalers Tastables, which is based opposite the supermarket, said he knew the man who bought from Asda and could understand why he did it.

He said: "Asda sells bananas very cheaply - a lot of supermarkets do. Some of them have been as low as 30p or 40p a kilo.

"There is a shortage of bananas and they put them on promotion and then more people buy them. There is a family that do go over there purely because of the price."