Cutting the fat: goods basket updated

It's official: streaky rashers, wallpaper borders and blank video cassettes are no longer sought after by the modern consumer. But it's open arms for shellfish, home cinema surround systems and coffee makers in Irish households.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has changed the basket of goods and services it uses to measure consumer price inflation to more accurately reflect the tastes of today's more sophisticated, technologically savvy consumer.

So it's goodbye discman, hello MP3 player. So long 35mm photo film, bring on the digital printing.

While ready to eat Indian and Chinese meals, specialised teas and cereal breakfast bars make the cut for the first time, half legs of pork, tinned pineapple and cooking fat have been deleted.

Other additions to the typical consumer's life include self-tanning products, replica sports jerseys and a range of DIY power tools, while public telephones, shoe polish brushes and pocket calculators have fallen off the list.

The CSO made the changes, which are the first in five years, as a result of information from the 2004-2005 household budget survey and its own research, which included talking to retailers. The 80 additions and replacements mean that close to 15 per cent of the basket has been changed.

Adjustments in the weightings given to different areas of consumer spending mean that the CSO's "housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels" category moves from fourth position to first, while we are now spending less of our income on food, alcohol and tobacco.

"Evolution rather than revolution" is how Kieran Walsh from the CSO's Consumer Price Index division described the changes. "You can't expect people to stop buying milk," he commented.