Ireland

Cost of cooking a full family fry-up rises to €38, says CSO

Analysis of basket of goods used to calculate inflation found fry-up becoming more expensive

The cost of a family-sized traditional Irish breakfast has risen by 3.1 per cent. Photograph: Getty

Shauna Bowers
Fri Mar 15 2024 - 12:09

The cost of cooking an Irish fry-up might be hard to swallow this bank holiday weekend, with new data showing the breakfast staple has increased by more than 3 per cent over the past year.

On Friday, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) published statistics on the cost of a family-sized fry-up using the prices of some of the items it collects as part of the Consumer Price Index basket, which measures inflation in Ireland.

Its sample breakfast, which is based on items it does collect prices for, includes rashers, sausages, a half-dozen of large eggs, mushrooms, and tomatoes.

The CSO’s analysis found the cost of a family-sized traditional Irish breakfast using these ingredients has risen by 3.1 per cent in the 12 months to January 2024, the most recent 12-month period for which figures are available.

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The price of these ingredients has gone from €27.20 in January 2023 to €28.03 in 2024.

However, no traditional family fry-up would be complete without bread and butter, all washed down with a cup of tea or glass of milk.

The cost of a large white sliced pan and 1lb of butter has gone down from €5.50 in January 2023 to €5.40 in January 2024, which was a 1.8 per cent decrease. According to the CSO’s data, the only items to fall in price over the 12 months to January 2024 were bread, butter, and milk.

The cost of 80 tea bags and two litres of full-fat milk has risen from €5.17 to €5.30 in the 12 months to January 2024, and increase of 2.4 per cent.

That means for those who eat their traditional Irish breakfast with bread, butter, tea and milk, the cost was €38.79 for a family-sized feast in January 2024, which was up by 2.3 per cent over the 12 months.

Anthony Dawson, statistician in the Prices Division, said while some people might include additional items in their Irish breakfasts, they were unable to monitor the price changes of these as they do not collect data on them.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

Shauna Bowers

Shauna Bowers

Shauna Bowers is a reporter for The Irish Times

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