Remember when you used to go to the supermarket after work on a Friday night when it was still a novelty; when you could browse the shelves and serve yourself for the first time; when you quietly hoped the checkout person might make a mistake keying in the prices and undercharge you now and again; and when that person packed your groceries into a cardboard carton that was an art form in itself?
Today, we even have self-checkouts where the only joy is to be able to scan and pack your groceries without having to call for assistance because the wretched machine can’t work out whether you have provided your own bag or not.
The Guardian recently reviewed the modus operandi of the British Office of National Statistics (ONS) when compiling its assessment of inflation, the consumer price index (CPI) which is very similar to how the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) compiles ours. In simple terms, these surveys track the changing prices of a basket of goods and services.
This led to a discussion about the changing contents of the supermarket shopping basket over the years in the UK. It’s a similar story here.
Surveys like this provide a useful profile of how our tastes have changed and the cultural influences at play. The ONS began its surveys in 1947; the ABS began compiling the CPI here in 1960 but backdated its data to 1948.
From my quick research of the history of the CPI, the categories of food and other products that are included in the survey haven’t changed much over the last few decades. However, in both surveys, the individual components have changed significantly. As food products fall from favour, they are dropped from the index survey.
The staples are still there: vegetables, meat, milk, bread and dairy. However, the actual components of those categories change over time. For example, yoghurt apparently comes and goes; and Parmesan cheese used to be included in its packaged sawdust form, but is now accounted for in the way Italians mean us to grate our cheese.
In the days before fridges and freezers, people relied heavily on canned food. Everything came in a can, which made those cardboard cartons as heavy as lead. Today, the only cans on the list are tomatoes, sweetcorn and baked beans.
Tea is still included the Australian CPI. Of course, it is in the UK too, but no longer loose-leaf tea, only tea bags. My betting is that in the not-too-distant future, loose-leaf tea will come back into its own and be readmitted to the CPI peerage.
The British food list has increased from 65 to 154 items. It now includes things never dreamt of in the 1970s: vegetarian burgers, pre-packed salads, fresh fruit snacking pots, chewing gum, energy drinks, smoothies, chicken nuggets and doughnuts.
In the old days, the choice was between Corn Flakes and WeetBix. Occasionally, a treat like Coco-Pops or Rice Bubbles might sneak into the shopping basket. Nobody had ever heard of muesli. Now you go to boutique grocers and you have the choice of a seemingly endless array of mueslis – organic, non-organic, organic tropical, organic natural, with or without coconut – the list goes on.
The CPI in Australia is not only about food. The total basket is divided into 11 major groups, each representing a specific set of commodities:
food and non-alcoholic beverages, alcohol and tobacco
clothing and footwear
housing
furnishings, household equipment and services
health
transport
communication
recreation and culture
education
insurance and financial services.
About 100,000 separate price quotations are collected each quarter.
For the record, the current annual CPI for Tasmania is about 2.5 per cent, which is below the 2.7 per cent national average.
These surveys are a wealth of data – and not just for economists and other boffins. Buried in the dry statistics is a history of the way in which our society has changed – and will continue to change into the future.
Our grandparents would be gobsmacked by the things we take for granted; and even expect as a basic right.
It is sometimes worth taking a minute to think about just how far we have moved in what is a relatively short period of time – and to contemplate what things will look like in the future.
TFGA CEO Jan Davis
