What to do with obsolete machinery and industrial facilities?

Traditionally, this problem has always been solved expeditiously in Xixona/Jijona; by selling it all to the scrap merchant.  They were different times, when the turrón companies defined their profits exclusively in terms of the balance sheet. What did not generate profit through a direct transaction was doomed to disappear.

Changes in tourism and consumption have left their mark on the old commercial outlook and brought new concepts: the history of a company is part of the product that the company sells; it is an asset that is intangible, but enormously valuable.

JUAN ANTONIO SIRVENT SELFA on the advice of JOSÉ LÓPEZ MIRA and with the support of his son JUAN ANTONIO SIRVENT ARROYO, was ahead of the times in this sense and in the 1960s he created a small Turrón Museum. The passage of time has validated this decision and today, there are many companies that offer culture along with the products that they manufacture.

From the interior design point of view, the original idea was based on a sketch by López Mira.

As can be seen in this illustration, the sketch followed the model of the time and took a fundamentally ethnographic approach.

The Turrón Museum opened to the public in a section of the premises formerly occupied by the carpentry workshop of Turrones El Lobo and 1880:

and inside, the various sections designed by López Mira in his plan were arranged:

For three decades, the Museum facilities gradually expanded until they occupied the entire premises of the old carpentry workshop at Turrones El Lobo and 1880. All the utensils that became obsolete in the turrón and marzipan production processes were put into this facility. For a long time, the Turrón Museum was the only historical reference point on the production of this traditional local sweetmeat.

The folklore around turrón grew over this period and made the museum an important tourist attraction;

Today, however, we have had to rethink the old project and give it more scientific and technical weight and a proper historical context and adapt it to today’s technology. All this has led to a new dimension for the old aspirations: the goal is to convey to the consumer the idea that, when they buy a product made by  ALMENDRA Y MIEL S.A they are also getting a piece of the rich historic and technical heritage that has made it possible to produce the article that they are buying.

One might say that the fundamental goal of today’s TURRÓN MUSEUM is to design and develop a programme that centers on the technical and economic history of Xixona/Jijona, focusing attention on the technology around turrón and the role of ALMENDRA Y MIEL S.A in the local, national and international context.