People will increasingly become income rich and time poor between now and 2005. As a result, we will require more convenience foods and ready meals, will order in or eat out, and the food production and processing industries will have to respond rapidly to our changing lifestyles.

And we will place much greater emphasis on the safety of our food and look for value for money and convenience rather than laying emphasis on price.

That is the message which IBEC delivered yesterday after a three-month study, The Future of Irish Food, conducted in the US by Mr Ciaran Fitzgerald, director of the Food and Drink Federation of IBEC, and in Ireland by economist Mr Paul Tansey.

Because of this changing scenario, the Irish food and drinks industry can pioneer sophisticated food products on the domestic market which can then be exported to other markets, they say.

The average Irish household size is getting smaller - by 1997, almost half the population was living in one- or two-person households - and the number of households is increasing by 36,000 each year. Domestic consumer spending increased by almost four-fifths between 1990 and 1998. In the same period, household spending on food, drink and tobacco increased by 55 per cent to almost £9 billion (€11.43 billion).

This domestic consumption boom was fuelled by two main factors: the rising numbers at work, with a consequent large increase in aggregate household incomes - in the 1990s, employment in Ireland advanced by almost 500,000 people; and there were substantial gains in real disposable income for those at work, due to pay increases outpacing price rises and a moderation of the income tax burden.

Whereas in 1988, just more than 440,000 Irish women were working outside the home, by the end of 1999, this number had risen to 706,000. And 88 per cent of women in employment are working 20 hours a week or more, while three out of every five women in employment work 35 hours or more each week.

Mr Tansey predicts, on the basis of official estimates, that employment growth will continue rapidly over the next decade, and there will be a 15 per cent gain on today's level in the numbers at work by 2005 and a 25 per cent gain by 2010.

Because of labour shortages, the trend away from traditional industries to hi-tech companies, improved levels of education and a commitment to cutting income tax, real disposable incomes of those at work are expected to rise on average by 7.5 per cent annually to 2005.

"The picture emerging is one of solid if unspectacular growth with fairly buoyant conditions on an average basis to 2005," Mr Tansey says.

The population is expected to grow by just under 1 per cent a year over the next decade.

To meet the changing demands of population, lifestyle, sophistication and consumer awareness, IBEC says the food industry has to put a number of new strategies into place and pretty soon.

For example, we must develop new and higher labour force skills in the industry; place increased emphasis on food safety; develop sophisticated fresh food distribution channels; continue to develop the scale of the industry so that it can compete internationally; maintain competitiveness in the face of continuing concentration of the retail sector and above all keep a focus on the consumer who eats its food.

"It's up to the firms themselves to come to respond to these signals. They are going to have to come to terms with the changing nature of Irish households," Mr Tansey says.