Fruit producer Fyffes has become the latest company to slip on the e-commerce banana skin.

Worldoffruit.com, which offered "24-hour secure online trading and the latest industry news and views" on the global fresh fruit and vegetable market, is scaling back operations a year after launching.

Trading apples and pears online or bidding for boxes of bananas in internet auctions has not caught on in the way the company had hoped.

Offices in the UK, France, Holland, Spain and Italy will be closed and plans to open outposts in South Africa, South America and Asia have been abandoned.

Worldoffruit.com, which once employed 40 people, will be maintained by a staff of 10 from a small office in Dublin. Last year Fyffes spent €15m (£9.6m) on the project which claimed to have 500 registered users in 35 countries.

"Expenditure going forward will be significantly below that envisaged in the company's original business plan and staff numbers have been reduced accordingly," Fyffes said in a statement.

"It is expected that Worldoffruit.com will continue to operate, but on a significantly reduced scale, and costs in 2001 are not expected to be material in a group context."

The cost cutting exercise underlines the difficulties business to business internet exchanges are encountering.

Worldoffruit aimed to make the trade of fruit more efficient and competitive through a centralised marketplace. It estimated that 20% of the world's fruit would be bought and sold over the internet by 2004.

However, it failed to deliver on the promise still posted on its website last night: "Reality has now replaced a lot of hype in e-commerce, and we believe that Worldoffruit.com will survive and prosper as a result of the dedicated and streamlined service we provide."