Frozen food company GIAS opens corporate museum in Calabria

The Tenuta family has inaugurated GIAS Experience, a corporate museum in Mongrassano, a village of just over a thousand inhabitants in the province of Cosenza, Calabria. Housed in the restored Casale Tenuta, a rural building surrounded by olive trees and spontaneous vegetation, the museum overlooks a valley whose biodiversity supplies raw materials for GIAS, a frozen food company. Outside, early industrial machinery is displayed like post-industrial sculptures. Inside, the exhibition unfolds through tactile interfaces, interactive surfaces, digital archives, videos, and documentary materials, creating a sensory experience. One section focuses on cold innovation, tracing the history of freezing from snow in popular markets to the patents that in the 1970s allowed GIAS to revolutionize tomato processing; visitors can interact with an icy wall. Another area features a large map showing the global geography of Calabrian products, highlighting how the company contributed to a global imaginary linked to the territory. The museum also emphasizes play as a critical device, transforming agricultural manual skills into shared cultural heritage. The most contemporary space is a multifunctional room for public activities: school labs, workshops, training sessions, showcooking, and PCTO programs, asserting the museum's social role.