MANY Italians excluded their beloved pasta from their shopping yesterday in protest at forthcoming price rises, with consumer groups hailing the boycott as an excellent result.

Italians are in a state of outrage that rising wheat prices mean a plate of spaghetti in the next few months will almost certainly go up, even if by only a few pence, as many families eat pasta every day of the week.

"Pasta, bread, milk - these are the most important things. We are not protesting for perfumes or jewels, but for pasta and bread," said a demonstrator, Marisa, at a Rome protest. "It is the government's fault, they've eaten everything."

Clemente Mastella, the justice minister, promised to support the cause by skipping his favourite Neapolitan dish of pasta tubes stuffed with tomatoes and ricotta.

But there were few signs of his compatriots making a similar sacrifice at lunchtime, with hungry workers eating their usual pasta dishes at Rome restaurants that ignored the boycott.

"The pasta strike is symbolic, a call for Italians to make a sacrifice - to sacrifice something we can't give up, even when we travel abroad," said Carlo Pileri of the ADOC consumer group.

Mr Pileri said the rise in prices could prevent families from "saving money to buy other products, such as shoes, clothes or cars", three other Italian passions.

Consumer groups said a straw poll of shoppers leaving supermarkets in six cities showed nearly half had not bought a packet of pasta - hailed as a great success.

Demonstrators in Rome held up yellow banners showing a sharp rise in prices, and gave away free packets of pasta. The jump in bread, pasta and dairy product prices will lead to an estimated annual 7 per cent rise in food prices overall, they say, with further price increases feared to be on the way.

A more than doubling in wheat prices over the past year is to blame, spurring Italy's biggest milling group to raise flour prices by more than 50 per cent by year-end. Barilla, the world's largest pasta maker, has signalled it will raise prices soon.

The increases are small, but the move has touched a nerve among Italians weary of steadily rising prices and higher taxes