Who we are

Casoin Online wants to be the beginning of a journey of innovation, of love for the food excellence of our land and of collaboration with the quality artisans of our territory.

We chose to call it Casoin because for us it is the essence of our project, and this word fully represents our idea.

We want to be your trusted e-commerce, where you can buy online typical artisanal food products from Veneto, made by companies that every day celebrate the tradition and the authentic flavours of our table and our territory.

A little history of the Casoin....

C A S O I N= masculine noun, from the Veneto dialect. A small village shop, often family-run. The reference shop of a community. A place selling basic necessities and zero-mile products.

Casoin is an ancient word of the Veneto dialect, full of meaning. It means a small village shop, and its etymology is uncertain. In the dictionaries of the Veneto dialect, the entry casoìn gives either grocery shop or cheese shop. It might derive from the Latin word for cheese, caseus, or more simply be a diminutive of casa (house). The second hypothesis is more likely, also considering the context of the Casoin. In fact, most casoin were located in the very same "house" as their owners. We are talking about old village shops, small family businesses, which nevertheless preserved the charm of country authenticity.

Once, these places dotted the territory of the Serenissima. They were part of the local agri-food landscape and were the source of livelihood for many families, particularly outside the big cities.

In a "casoin" you could find the food essentials, above all local products. The authenticity of the goods sold in a casoin was guaranteed by the close and indissoluble relationship between producers and consumers in the almost self-sufficient economy of the villages. The seasonality of fruit and vegetables, but also of the production of wines and cheeses, set the ritual rhythm of country life in the Veneto landscape. It can be said that, in historical periods when nobody talked about quality, provenance, organic methods and zero-mile food, the various casoin managed to sell products that fell into all of these categories. Without meaning to, therefore, still today, in our search for food products, we try, in a certain sense, to return to that almost archaic relationship of self-production and self-consumption.

The casoin, then, contributed to the food and wine diversity of the Veneto area, since they financed and worked with companies that were often exclusively local and that, as happens in every family, developed slightly different processes of production, cultivation and farming. Let us think, for example, of Asiago cheese, which was named a DOP in 1978 (a product made and packaged entirely in the declared territory of origin). Its quality was born from centuries of history of the farming communities of the plateau of the seven municipalities. The cheese in fact arises from a convergence of techniques and dairy research that came out of the needs of a well-defined cultural universe, yet one that is equally multifaceted. The example of Asiago then applies to many other products, ranging from typical cured meats to wines, locally produced oils and seasonal vegetables, all often resold by the casoin closest to home.

In the last seventy years, however, with the appearance of large-scale retail warehouses, hypermarkets and mobility, the casoin are disappearing. The competition with the big supermarket chains is too strong, and the shops that were an integral part of Veneto's cultural identity have struggled to survive. With them, a testimony of village and country memory is also vanishing.

Moreover, the disappearance of the Casoin breaks a link in the chain of the genuine and direct relationship between the producers of Veneto (in particular small farms in the hills, plains and mountains) and the consumer. It was not unusual, once, to know in person the "casari" (cheesemakers), the farmers, the breeders who produced the cheese, vegetables, cured meats, oil, wine and bread on which the village fed itself. Often they were neighbours, friends, relatives who all met in the casoin as a place of exchange, business and community growth.

The Casoin online platform seeks to bring back to the consumer the poetry and charm of a conscious, slow and enjoyed way of eating, as well as letting people taste a piece of food and wine culture and guaranteeing great quality and seasonality. It achieves its goal by acting as an intermediary between the various local farms of Veneto, trying to help them make themselves known and distribute these unique products beyond their own reality.

For this reason casoinonline.it sets out to create a shop made up of many realities, able to gather within itself a vast landscape, cultural and food and wine panorama that is exquisitely Veneto. The wish of the Casoin is therefore to rediscover a heritage on the verge of oblivion and to make us attentive and curious consumers, perhaps ready to fill our own personal wicker basket not only with products but with stories, daydreams, culture and genuineness of taste and food and wine experience.