A woman got a “freaky” surprise when she found a “double banana” in her fruit bowl.

Kate Wright, from Kendal, Cumbria, stumbled upon the “massive” piece of produce when she was about to have breakfast.

“The first thing I did was put it on social media,” she said, adding: “It got quite a lot of likes.”

Banana importers J N Fox and Sons said while common to see on plantations it was “very unusual” to find them in shops, as they were typically “eliminated” before hitting the shelves.

The firm’s head of operations, Kristy Fox, said such bananas were usually removed from their stems when they were young.

She said this was to make sure this type of fruit did not take too many nutrients away from single bananas, as well as to ensure they did not “squash” them as they grew.

The BBC has also seen pictures of “triple bananas”.

“They’re still edible,” she said. “There is nothing wrong with them… it’s just how they grow.”

Selling the fruit could be used to tackle food waste, she suggested. “Maybe utilise them like the wonky fruit you see in supermarkets,” she said.

Ms Wright said the only person on her Facebook page who had seen such a fruit was a friend from the Philippines.

She was told there was a local superstition against women eating them, over debunked claims it may lead to conjoined twins. There are similar superstitions in Bangladesh and Indonesia.

The 49-year-old opened the fruit the following day to find it was just two bananas in one skin and shared it with her husband.

“It tasted normal,” she said.