La Toja Manantiales Museum Store is located in what was once the old La Toja soap factory. In its facilities we can discover the origins and evolution of this well-known brand of products through explanatory panels and different products on display.
A LITTLE HISTORY
La Toja soap was one of the most famous in the national territory. It began to be marketed in 1905 by the Sociedad Anónima La Toja, but what few people know is that its birth was the result of chance. The Society thought about making some soaps advertising claim, like other objects that they marketed by exporting the La Toja brand and, as such, did not constitute a business base in themselves. On the contrary, they would be one more expense, such as almanacs, notebooks, ashtrays, penknives…
Since nothing was earned from its sale, some soaps were made with the products purest and more expensive, saturating them with mineral salts. They put all the salt it could contain into each bar of soap, and this resulted in curing the skin patients who used them. No more was needed…
Demand grew, and in 1934 the first expansion of the factory was carried out, followed by other successive ones. Due to the new demands of the national and international market, they forced the production limits of the historic factory, and thus, given the physical limitations of the island, in 1965 they built a second factory in A Coruña —located in A Ponte da Pasaxe—, dependent on the island’s parent factory. They moved it to Culleredo in 1980, to close it in 2007. Today, the soaps of A Toxa are manufactured outside of Galicia, but trailers continue to come to carry the water to the new production centers.
