CSO worked out how much the cost of a full Irish has increased – but they’ve left out the beans
Forget GDP-plus, the Consumer Price Index, or leprechaun economics.
We don’t want to hear about the Live Register, the Property Price Register or even the all-important Big Mac Index.
There’s a new economic indicator in town – the Fry-ometer.
The cost of a full Irish breakfast has increased by 2.3pc over the past 12 months. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), a survey found the cost of rashers, sausages, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and other components of the traditional Irish fry-up have spiralled.
However, the researchers declined to get involved in the heated debate over whether beans belong on the plate. Because of this, they left beans out of their calculations.
Between January last year and January 2024, the overall cost of putting together a full Irish, including bread, butter and tea or milk, has increased by 2.3pc, the CSO’s culinary experts calculated.
Ahead of St Patrick’s Day, the statisticians worked out that the cost of back rashers, pork sausages, mushrooms and tomatoes for a family-sized slap-up breakfast had increased from €27.20 in January 2023 to €28.03 in 2024. That’s an increase of 3.1pc.
Crucially, no Irish fry is complete without fresh bread and a cup of tea or a glass of milk, according to the CSO.
The only items in the boffins’ shopping list to fall in price over the 12 months were bread, butter, and milk, while the price of tea had gone up.
This means the all-important bread, butter and tea/milk component of the morning feast fell overall by 1.8pc, from €5.50 in January 2023 to €5.40 in January 2024.
That puts the full cost of the traditional breakfast blow-out, including bread, butter, tea and milk, at €38.79 in January 2024 – up by 2.3pc over the 12 months to January 2024.
“Whether you grill it or fry it, love it or loathe it, the traditional full Irish breakfast is a staple for many and is particularly associated with hospitality,” the CSO said in a statement accompanying its latest Fry-ometer figures.
The figures were drawn from its surveys for the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
Anthony Dawson, statistician in the CSO’s prices division, said: “While most of the items associated with a traditional Irish breakfast are collected by our team of price collectors, some items such as black and white pudding are not published as a national average price.
“Other items, such as hash browns, are not part of the CPI basket of goods and are not part of the CPI price collection.
“The more controversial choice of whether beans should be included or not on the plate has been removed from our shoulders as we also do not produce national average prices for them.”
The CSO also gave a nod to evolving food trends, saying that because milk and meat substitutes have only recently been added to their sample basket of goods, “it will be 12 months before we have comparative data available for vegan items other than mushrooms and tomatoes”.