| The updating of the legendary 'basket of goods' used by ONS to calculate inflation is a popular annual ritual. The products and services newly included – and those consigned to the statistical dustbin – tell the story of our changing consumption habits. But how accurate can the inflation figures be if you never buy any of these items? Philip Gooding explains. Women's exercise leggings and action cameras such as GoPros have been added to the basket of goods and services used to calculate inflation. In addition, new food items added to the 2018 list include raspberries, quiche and prepared mashed potato, some 30 years after dried mashed potato left.
However, pork pies and edam cheese are out. While pork pies are being removed as an individual item, they will still be covered by the wider product of a "meat-based snack", which includes pork pies as well as, for example, sausage rolls, mini Cornish pasties and scotch eggs. This is to ensure that we can collect prices for this kind of snack in shops where pork pies themselves are not available.
The basket of goods helps measure the changing cost of products and services over time, updated annually to reflect consumer behaviour and showing the changing tastes and habits of the UK. | 
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