No doubt Maurice Pratt and his team at Tesco Ireland will be moving swiftly to follow the lead of their counterparts in Britain where the supermarket chain has asked its suppliers to grow smaller melons.

Why? Because focus groups of shoppers revealed that they subconsciously selected fruit according to the trend in breast size.

It seems that a retail psychologist's report for Tesco, prompted by a marked drop in melon sales, suggested that the modern preference for smaller breasts, as exhibited by models like superwaif Kate Moss, is informing customers' decisions to spurn larger melons.

The possibility of a subconscious relationship between breast and melon size was first raised by a member of an all-female focus group and was substantiated by the retail psychologist who reportedly found that seven out of 10 women questioned agreed that breast size was "the most likely subconscious factor when selecting size of melon".

Indeed, half the women went further, suggesting that breast size was a conscious thought when choosing melons.