KEY POINTS:
Saveloys and brandy are among the casualties of a new breed of consumer - one that prefers hummus and free-range eggs to the humble casserole.
Statistics New Zealand has updated the basket of goods it uses to track the cost of living.
The new basket paints a picture of an increasingly fast-paced, digital society - where a bunch of cut flowers is more popular than growing a rose bush.
The consumers price index goods basket is updated about once every three years to reflect how New Zealanders spend their money.
The new basket bids goodbye to writing paper and video cassette tapes. In their place are computer printing paper, recordable DVDs and Trade Me auction fees.
The data, collected from 2600 households in the year to June 2007, shows Kiwis are quickly discarding old gadgets for digital technology.
On the rise are digital music downloads, free-to-air digital TV receivers and memory cards for cameras.
Photographic film is out, and cathode ray tube televisions have given way to plasma and LCD sets.
Marketing experts said the new shopping basket showed shoppers were becoming more ethical as well as health- and cost-conscious.
Rick Starr, a senior lecturer in marketing at Auckland University's Business School, said people tended to swap groceries like meat and chicken for cheaper, poorer-quality cuts in tough times. But the growth of free-range egg sales showed people would pay more for a product if they felt guilty about the treatment of animals.
Dr Lisa McNeill, a marketing lecturer at the University of Otago Business School, said spending on digital downloads and Trade Me auction fees was part of living in a modern society.
Grocery items like hummus - unthinkable on the average Kiwi's shopping list 10 or 20 years ago - had become mainstream as we embraced a more Mediterranean style of eating.
Dr McNeill said condensed milk - once a staple of Kiwi baking - had fallen from favour as people paid more attention to what they put in their bodies. The same trend was driving up soy milk sales and leaching the popularity of meals like saveloys and mash.
Other items new to the basket included pineapple, vodka and ten-pin bowling.
She said the shift from buying rose bushes to cut flowers might be caused by falling home ownership and "people spending more time with their digital gadgets".
