Supermarket owner Foodstuffs was alerted to the discovery of black widow spiders in Mexican red and black grapes on Friday.
Foodstuffs said grapes from the batch suspected to have been containing the spiders were taken from the shelves that day.
A spokeswoman said there was not enough evidence to confirm that the spiders were isolated to one grower, so on Monday all Foodstuffs stores in the North and South Island withdrew all Mexican green, red and black grapes from shelf in consultation with Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).
"Foodstuffs has taken the additional step of requiring all importers of grapes from Mexico to show evidence of product fumigation before we will accept them into our stores for retail sale," she said.
MPI was liaising with all supermarket chains and independent fruit and vegetable outlets who were affected.
"Foodstuffs has taken the conservative approach to withdraw all affected product as customer safety is our top priority," the spokeswoman said.
A Countdown spokesman said MPI asked the the supermarket chain on Monday to undertake "a precautionary withdrawal of grapes from Mexico, which had been distributed to our South Island stores".
"As is our standard practice, we immediately complied with this withdrawal. As a further precaution, on MPI's instructions, today we removed Mexican grapes from sale from our North Island stores.
"No spiders have been sighted in grapes in our stores or our distribution centres. The withdrawal at Countdown is a precaution, after reports of spiders in consignments from Mexico to other suppliers."
The spokesman said MPI had now requested additional fumigation and Countdown was implementing more extensive inspections of the grapes.
"These enhanced steps have now been put in place."
