Launnie Long-standers: Casalinga

Step inside Casalinga and the first thing that hits you is the smell. Cured meats, smoked paprika, something rich and slow hanging in the air. The cabinets are full. The handwritten labels are deliberate. Everything in this store has been made from scratch by people who care deeply about where it came from and how it got here. It is, as the name suggests, home style. Casalinga is the Italian word for homemade, and that thread runs through every product, every recipe, and every conversation that happens across the counter.

Rob has been in the trade for more than forty years. He bought his first butcher shop at twenty-one, a newlywed learning on his feet. For a decade he ran that store, sometimes pulling a hundred and ten hours a week, working Thursday and Friday nights until nine. But somewhere along the way, the spark shifted. "I was just doing retail, buying and selling," he says. "I wasn’t where my passion was. My passion was innovation." He wanted to create, not just stock shelves. He wanted to build something rooted in his Italian heritage, something that carried the flavours he grew up with into a business that could last.

He sold up and tried working for someone else. It lasted three months. "I’ve never worked for anyone else in my life," he says. "Once I qualified, I always worked for myself." He told his wife Rose he was going to resign. She looked at him. Four kids, a mortgage, and no clear plan. But Rob had an idea that wouldn’t let go. The store that would become Casalinga was sitting empty, a closed business with potential. The owner offered Rob a management role. Rob said no. "How about I buy it," he said, "and I’ll create this Italian empire I’ve always wanted to build."

Rose came down to have a look. "She walked out and said no," Rob recalls with a grin. "And I said maybe." In the end, they came back and they bought it. They gutted the place, refitted it with new plants and equipment, and opened the doors. Within six months they were turning over more than the previous store! "That gave me the confidence," Rob says. "A lot of people told us, there’s limited parking, you’re not going to be successful. But my wife was good and very encouraging. So I had this argument in my head. I had to prove it. I had to tick every box."

Twenty years later, those boxes have well and truly been ticked. Casalinga now produces close to thirty different small goods, all manufactured on site, and all made from Tasmanian meat. Rob’s recipes are not pulled from textbooks. They are written from experience. He and Rose travelled through Europe with a notebook and a camera, eating their way across Italy and Spain, absorbing the culture and the craft. "The art is not just making a Spanish chorizo," Rob says. "I actually have to go to Spain. Put myself inside Spain. The flavours, the ingredients. I came back with those flavours in my mind, and that’s how I write my recipes." He imports his smoked paprika from Spain because the Australian product cannot produce a true chorizo. His cures are made specifically for Casalinga, free from the additives that mass production demands. "It’s all about the method," he says. "I like to write my own recipe, but I need to know the method."

That commitment to authenticity runs up against Australian food regulations at every turn. Fermentation and traditional curing methods are not widely recognised here. Rob’s auditor has told him 'no' more times than he can count. "And I’ll go back to the drawing board again," he says. "I’ll persist with that recipe and keep going back to the auditor." He believes he has now found a way to manufacture prosciutto to Australian standards while staying true to Italian tradition. When sourcing hits a dead end and someone tells him a product can’t be found, Rob doesn’t stop. He reaches out to importers, to contacts in New Zealand, to European manufacturers. "Hurdles are made to jump over," he says. "If someone says can’t, that gets me going."

When they first set up in this part of Launceston, the small goods landscape was crowded. Plenty of butchers were dabbling in continental products. Someone making a ham here, a salami there. "It confused the market," Rose says. "It was very competitive. You had to push hard to get across the line." As time went on, auditing standards rose. Lab testing became mandatory. Hygiene requirements tightened. Many competitors dropped away. Casalinga stayed and grew, because Rob and Rose had already built the systems and the standards that others found too costly to maintain.

The support from the Launceston community has come not just from the public, but from other business owners. Vineyards, restaurants, cafés. What started with five vineyards now sits at twenty-five statewide. "Tasmanian businesses are really good at supporting other Tasmanian businesses," Rose says. "They want to sell local products, and they know what we produce. It goes back to the farmers, back into the economy. They’re very strong on that." Retail has become their biggest growth area. People drive from Hobart to buy. Others come from the North-West for the day. "There wouldn’t be a week go by without someone from out of town," Rob says. "I always ask how they heard about us. It’s always word of mouth. Someone had it at a friend’s house, or they tried it at a vineyard. I get a bit overwhelmed by it, honestly."

What draws people in goes beyond the product. Everything is grass-fed, free range, and naturally processed. Casalinga still works with majority carcass meat, not boxed cuts. They can adjust almost any product for allergies. Nitrite-free, low salt, gluten-free. "Because we’re the manufacturer, we know what’s in everything," Rob says. "We make it all from scratch. If something doesn’t need to be in there, we take it out." Rose adds, "A lot of people come in because of that. The fact that it’s grass-fed, free range, natural processing. That’s a key factor for a lot of our customers, especially the ones with allergies.”

Rob’s approach to customer service is deeply personal. He gives out his mobile number on his business card. He takes calls on Christmas Day from customers unsure about their roast. "I said to them, look, it’s only five o’clock. If it means you come back next year and spend another hundred bucks, that’s a pretty good investment." Rose shakes her head. Rob laughs. He knows it drives her mad, but he also knows it is the reason people keep coming back. "It’s my business," he says, "but it’s your shop. We want everyone to feel part of Casalinga. It’s one big family. That’s the European way."

They tried Hobart once, early on. It was fine. But it didn’t stick. "We didn’t have that same feel," Rose says. "We didn’t have that same passion down there." Launceston gave them something different. Customers who became friends. Conversations at the counter that turned into real relationships. "I can’t name a single bad customer," Rob says. "A lot of them have become good mates." Rose agrees. "We love getting emails from our customers. The other day we got one from a small tourism operator we supply. She said, you’re only a small order each week, but your service is so great. Rain, hail or shine, you’re here on time. It’s so nice to get that. Nobody else sees it. But we do."

Rob’s vision for the store was always bigger than a butcher shop. "I wanted to create this store around flavours of the world," he says. "My passion was to bring European and international flavours to Launceston so everyone could be part of that. I just love food. I love wine. I love being around people and people enjoying good food." Rose is the one who keeps the machinery of the business turning. Between them, they cover every corner of the operation.

Their advice for anyone starting out is hard-earned. "Take the challenge," Rob says. "Get the right mentor. Get the right advice. We need more small businesses. We need more people driving quality and customer service." Even after forty-two years, they still attend networking events, still seek out mentors. "You never know everything," Rob says. "You come away from one of those evenings and you might pick up one simple little thing that changes your whole outlook." Rose nods. "We still go and talk to financial advisors. We still use mentors. When we expanded, we sat down and discussed it properly. It’s been absolutely worthwhile."

Rob pauses, then adds one more thing. "Compliment people," he says. "People get negativity all day. If you go somewhere and you get good service, tell them. Whether it’s the person behind the counter or the chef or the lady showing you five pairs of shoes. Tell them. Nobody does that enough."

From a young butcher with a notebook and a dream to a small goods operation that supplies vineyards, restaurants, and kitchens across Tasmania, Casalinga is proof that passion, persistence, and a stubborn refusal to hear the word no can take you a very long way. It is a store that smells like memory, where people are known by name, and where every recipe has been written by hand, tested by instinct, and shaped by a lifetime of caring about the details.