Cimbali Group celebrates these milestones with the restyling of MUMAC and looks towards a future based on innovation and sustainability
Responsibility, inclusiveness and interaction are the guiding principles of the project to reorganise the museum, which reopens to the public on Sunday 23 October with a new-look display and new machines that enrich the collection.
Double milestone this year for the Cimbali Group which celebrates both its 110th birthday and the 10th anniversary of MUMAC - its company museum - the largest permanent exhibition devoted to the history, world and culture of professional espresso machines.
The company, founded in 1912, has grown consistently over the last 110 years, becoming the multinational that it is today: an effective and high-performance organisational structure: 4 plants in northern Italy and 1 in the USA, 2 sales offices in Italy and 11 offices abroad, and a distribution network in over 100 countries.
An authentic Italian business which has expanded over the years, exporting its knowhow and its entrepreneurial expertise based on an unwavering commitment to product and service innovation and to environmental and social sustainability.
“We have acquired a vast amount of experience in the sector over our long history and this has been crucial in helping us to remain open-minded and develop our ability to anticipate the future. However, it is only by innovating that we have managed to bring our projects to life and grow on the market”, comments Maurizio Cimbali, Chairman of the company. “Today, innovation must go hand-in-hand with 360° sustainability and the Cimbali Group will continue to invest in this area”.
The present but above all the future: Innovation and sustainability
Together with internationalisation and sustainability, innovation has always been one of the cornerstones of the Cimbali Group philosophy.
One important figure is worth underlining: forecast investments in product development in 2023 will equate to over 5% of revenues.
We have worked on several cutting-edge sustainable technologies, also presented during the Host 2021 trade fair, which improve machine performance while limiting their environmental impact and enhancing the skills of professionals.
Sustainability is the common thread that connects all of the activities of the Cimbali Group, from products to services, innovation to technology. We have outlined our serious commitment to the themes of the UN 2030 Agenda, pledging to take concrete and measurable actions in relation to four specific Sustainable Development Goals: planet, people, product, partnerships.
In July this year we published our first sustainability report, with the aim of obtaining the first results in 2023. The Cimbali Group plays a frontline role in this area, from worker health to its commitment to reducing waste, from the use of recyclable materials to the application of cutting-edge green technologies, and through to its constant collaboration with other organisations in order to meet common goals.
10 years of MUMAC - The Coffee Machine Museum
Innovation, design and sustainability are the cornerstones of the company, today and tomorrow, just as they were yesterday. And it was the issue of corporate social and cultural responsibility that inspired the idea, in 2012, of creating a museum to protect the Italian heritage represented by an entire Made in Italy sector and to acknowledge the country’s contribution to the industry. The result was MUMAC, a cultural hub consisting of: MUMAC, the Coffee Machine Museum, with the exhibition of the Cimbali and Maltoni collections; MUMAC Library, the historic Coffee industry library; MUMAC Academy, a place for training and promoting the coffee culture; Hangar 100, a multifunctional annex for temporary exhibitions.
To mark its tenth anniversary, the MUMAC exhibition will be refreshed also to welcome new machines to the collection.
“We are really proud to celebrate the tenth anniversary of MUMAC which, as well as our company museum, over time has become an institution for all collectors and coffee and design lovers” comments Fabrizia Cimbali, CEO of the Cimbali Group. “We wanted to mark this tenth anniversary by redesigning the spaces and the museum experience in order to meet the more exacting requirements of today’s visitors and therefore make ourselves more attractive to the public”.
The museum reorganisation project, entrusted to designers Antonella Andriani and Ambrogio Rossari, was developed according to five main principles which will offer a fresh new take on the virtuous meeting between the cutting-edge technology of the machines and the pleasure of coffee: “Responsibility, harmony, inclusiveness, accessibility and interaction were the guidelines that shaped the entire project to revisit the MUMAC exhibition space with the aim of making it increasingly a museum for everyone, with an eye on both social and cultural corporate responsibility” explains Barbara Foglia, MUMAC Manager.
As for the machines, the two Cimbali and Maltoni collections, combined within the museum and consisting of almost 350 pieces in total, 100 of which on display, offer visitors a snapshot of over 120 years of an entire Made in Italy technology sector. Thanks to the support of collector Enrico Maltoni, to celebrate its 10th anniversary the museum has replaced around 30% of the machines on display. Many of the new exhibits have never been displayed before, including a very rare La San Marco column machine manufactured in Udine in 1920 and steam powered, and an equally rare two-group Eterna from the 1952 Zenith series with an incredible body with original chroming in excellent condition.
MUMAC will reopen to the public on Sunday 23 October with a special opening from 10.30 to 13.00 and from 16.30 to 19.30 to mark the second Museocity inTOUR initiative, which promotes the discovery of the Lombardy region through visits of important yet little known cultural heritage sites.