CSO Serves up the Sizzling Cost of a Full Irish Breakfast

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.

Ahead of St Patrick’s Day, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has calculated the costs of a family-sized fry-up using the prices of some of the items we collect as part of our Consumer Price Index basket. These prices form part of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which measures inflation in Ireland.

Anthony Dawson, Statistician in the 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.”

Our sample plate, based on items we do collect prices for, includes rashers, sausages, a half-dozen of large eggs, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Our analysis has found the cost of a family-sized traditional Irish breakfast using these ingredients has risen by 3.1% in the 12 months to January 2024, the most recent 12-month period for which figures are available.

It is worth noting that we collect the price of back rashers, pork sausages, mushrooms, and tomatoes by the kilogram. To put that another way,1kg would equate to between 16-20 sausages, or about 12-16 rashers.

Looking just at the cost for this family-sized fry-up, the price of these ingredients has gone from €27.20 in January 2023 to €28.03 in 2024 or up by 3.1%.

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% decrease.

In fact, 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, or has gone up by 2.4%.

That puts the total cost of a traditional Irish breakfast including bread, butter, tea, and milk at €38.79 in January 2024, which was up by 2.3% over the 12 months to January 2024.

Please note: Milk and meat substitutes have only recently been added to the basket of goods as announced on 15 February 2024 so it will be 12 months before we have comparative data available for vegan items other than mushrooms and tomatoes.