Famously ebullient butcher Rob Boyle has been crowned City of Greater Dandenong’s Corporate Citizen of the Year.
For 33 years, Rob’s British & Irish Butchery with its pork pies, black puddings and haggis has become a big part of Dandenong’s food mecca.
Boyle – whose high- energy visage has often featured in Star Journal – says good humour and spirits are essential as a butcher.
“It’s a hard job. If you’re a miserable b******, it’s a very hard life.
“Most butchers are naturally good with customers. It’s not put on.”
Yet it took “10 years of heartache, late nights and a lot of stress” to build his success.
“We didn’t make a red cent for 10 years. I was $60,000 behind in my rent and behind in my bills – though people had a little more leeway in those days.”
Now his speciality meats are sought by international travellers, Food Safari tourists and attracts praise on social media from around the world.
“These days someone gets one of your pork pies, gets on Facebook and tells the world. It’s brilliant for us.
“We have about 14,000 followers and we get messages from Croatia and Poland and others who say they wish we were closer to them.”
Growing up in England, Boyle fell into butchery after originally wanting to be a carpenter.
“I was good at woodwork as a kid and liked to use my hands. But it didn’t work out – there were no jobs.”
He applied for an advertised job at a supermarket’s butchery.
In a stroke of luck, his family’s former local butcher was in charge. He recognised Boyle, who used to pick up errands for his mum, and gave him a job.
“I never looked back. I’ve always been in work.”
In Dandenong, Boyle first worked for butcher Peter Smith before forging his own business, a traditional “red meat” shop Rob’s Continental Butchers set in Palm Plaza.
Things didn’t start to fire until Boyle responded to ‘niche’ requests such as black puddings and pork pies.
He looked up traditional recipes for black pudding, sourced blood from an abattoir and found the food was a hit.
As Boyle diversified with his self-made steak pies, English bacon and gammon, he found he had no time for the traditional red meats line.
“I saw the future was to cater for the English and Irish customer. We got a lot of Europeans, especially older ones who couldn’t find those speciality meats anymore.”
A great collector of cookbooks, one of his treasures is a US book listing 330 sausage recipes from around the world.
Greater Dandenong’s cultural diversity has proven to be a strength, he says.
“This place is now a food mecca with beautiful food from around the world.”
Boyle was announced as Corporate Citizen of the Year at City of Greater Dandenong’s Australia Day awards last month.
