Fancy a change from buying shares in the likes of Bank of Ireland and CRH? How about putting your money into lean hogs and soybeans? But don't worry - that doesn't mean taking a delivery of an underweight pig or eating tonnes of pulses every night for the next month.

Thanks to the introduction earlier this week of a new type of security, Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs) - an investment vehicle that tracks the performance of an underlying commodity index - investors can now put their money into commodities in the same way they would any company share.

The new ETCs, set up by British group ETF Securities, were listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on Wednesday as 19 individual commodities, ranging from pigs and coffee to nickel and gas.

The offering also includes 10 baskets of commodities under headings such as livestock, energy and grains, and the prices are based on the Dow Jones-AIG Commodities Index.

The phenomenon has been welcomed by traders, including those in Dublin, who say it gives investors a chance to get into a new and increasingly attractive area of the financial world.

"For the first time, individuals have the opportunity to benefit directly from gains in commodity prices," says one Dublin trader.

Until now, institutional and retail investors had been unable to invest directly in softer commodities without taking physical delivery of the materials.

"The only way for people to take a punt on commodities without buying futures was by buying shares in companies that are involved in that area, something that doesn't always produce the desired benefits," says Graham Tuckwell, chairman of ETF Securities.

"ETCs provide a pure way of tracking a commodity rather than trying to replicate exposure by trading shares of commodity companies - many of which do not correlate to the underlying commodity, if available at all."

Tuckwell, who was behind the world's first ETC, Gold Bullion Securities launched in London in 2004, says the introduction of the new ETCs will remove many of the barriers that previously prevented individual investors from putting their money into commodities, such as access, trading and operational risks, custody and transaction costs.

Appetite for commodities has grown over the past few years as investors have sought to diversify their portfolios and as products such as oil and gas have become more topical.

Globally, more than $80 billion (€63 million) has been invested in commodity indices, while the two existing ETCs, gold bullion and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) brent crude oil, have attracted assets worth about $2 billion on the LSE, according to Tuckwell.

Martin Graham, director of markets at the LSE, welcomed the initiative, saying this is the first time in London's modern history that investors have had such straightforward access to commodities.

It's also the first time that all of these commodities - in the form of 29 new securities and three existing ones - have been available through the same market and the same time zone.

To accommodate the product, the LSE has created a new sector, also to be known as Exchange Traded Commodities.

Similar to ETFs - as launched by the Iseq last year - the ETCs are liquid, accessible and simple.

They are open-ended securities which can be bought and sold by investors on a regulated exchange in the same way as any equity, and can be created and redeemed on a continuous basis by marketmakers matching the liquidity of the underlying markets.

While bets on commodity prices were already available via spread bets or futures contracts, this week's launch represents

the first opportunity to trade a wide range of commodities through a security that behaves like a share.

"ETCs do not involve any of the difficulties with buying and then managing a futures position - such as worrying about margin calls, contracts expiring and rolling positions - or in buying and storing physical commodities," says Tuckwell.

Such an investment also offers the investor the opportunity to take advantage of the volatility found in commodities and play it to their own advantage using the index's diversity.

One recent study from the Yale School of Management found that, over a 45-year period starting in 1959, an equally weighted index of collateralised commodity futures would have earned historical returns that are comparable to those of stocks.

So if you have money to spare and fancy a change, then there may be more to coffee beans than you think.