Why Hamabessho Could Not Become a Food Town: A Real 10-Year Story in a Fictional Town
FOODSCAPE Magazine Series (This article takes about 3 minutes to read)
Japan Regional Series - Extra Edition: Hamabessho City, Kyushu
*Hamabessho City is a fictional town. The people, organizations, and dishes that appear are all fictional. However, the failures that occur in this town are based on things that have actually happened in various parts of Japan.
1. Binding the Final Report Yourself
Misaki Kurata returned to the Planning and Policy Division in the spring of 2024. She was 42. The first job she was assigned in her old workplace after 10 years was organizing the archives.
In the underground archives, there were 42 cardboard boxes. Stacks of files with "Food Town Promotion Office" written on the spines. These were files she had created herself as a founding member when she was 32 in 2014. Business plans. Meeting minutes. Event settlement statements. And in the newest box, there was only one thin booklet: "Food Town Promotion Project Final Report."
Binding the final report for a project you started yourself. That is the kind of work that exists in government offices.
Kurata pulled up a chair and opened the oldest box. On the first page of the meeting minutes from 10 years ago, her younger self had written: "It is not that Hamabessho has nothing. I think the only thing missing is how to put it all together."
—She was wrong. It wasn't a problem of how to put it together. It took 10 years and a lot of tax money to realize that.
2. A Rice Bowl Born in a Meeting Room
Hamabessho City is a town born from the Great Heisei Mergers of 2005. On the east coast of Kyushu, in a ria-style inlet where mountains drop directly into the sea, lies the urban area of the former Bessho City, which was once a castle town of a small 20,000-koku domain. The former Hamaura Town to the north is a fishing town for offshore fisheries. The former Sugitani Town in the mountains is a town of dried shiitake mushrooms and yuzu. In the deepest part of the mountains, the former Okuhata Village still had native vegetables derived from slash-and-burn agriculture.
Each town had its own food. In the castle town of Bessho, there was "Buen Chazuke," where local fish are dressed with sesame soy sauce and placed on rice. In the Hamaura huts, there was "Ara-daki," where fish that couldn't be sold were simmered in a sweet and spicy sauce. On the dining tables of Sugitani, there was yuzu kosho and dango soup. However, there was no such thing as "Hamabessho City local cuisine." Naturally, because Hamabessho City had only existed for 10 years.
In 2014, the year it was decided that the limited express train would pass through, the city established the "Food Town Promotion Office." The following year, a selection committee for local gourmet food was held. Kurata was in the secretariat.
The meeting was chaotic. "If it's fish, it has to be Hamaura," "The prestige of the castle town belongs to Bessho," "Is it about the sea again? Does the mountain not matter?" The representatives of the former towns and villages would not budge, and conclusions were always decided outside the meeting, among the influential people of the town. A few months later, a compromise plan brought by a consultant was adopted as is.
"Hamabessho Sea and Mountain Bowl." A rice bowl topped with fish from the bay, shiitake mushrooms from Sugitani, and yuzu. A dish that was on no one's dining table. A taste that was in no one's memory. As a result of trying to save face for everyone, it became a dish that belonged to no one.
She still remembers that when she left the meeting room, Kurata felt a slight sense of discomfort. But she didn't put that discomfort into words. The food made by the professionals was certainly delicious, the photos looked great, and above all, it had finally been decided.
3. The Enthusiasm Did Not Descend to Daily Life
In 2016, the Sea and Mountain Bowl participated in a B-grade gourmet festival and was even featured on television for a time. Lines formed, and the mayor held up the bowl with a smile. Kurata and the promotion office felt a definite sense of accomplishment.
However, when they returned to town, only three restaurants in the former Bessho urban area served the bowl. The diners in Hamaura and the shops in Sugitani did not participate. "That's not our food." That was all. It wasn't malice. They were just stating the facts.
The enthusiasm of the event did not descend to the daily dining table. Every time a festival ended, nothing remained in the town. When they consulted the prefecture about subsidies, they were told that fish belonged to the fisheries division, shiitake to the agriculture and forestry division, and tourism to the tourism division, and that the Sea and Mountain Bowl did not fit into any division's menu. The promotion office continued with the city's own funds.
4. The Building Was Built. And Then
In 2018, the Sugitani roadside station underwent a major renovation using subsidies, and a local production-for-local consumption restaurant was added. Kurata does not know the details of how the location was decided to be Sugitani. However, she remembers that the phrase "consideration for the mountains" was used repeatedly within the office.
In the same year, the municipal administration changed in the mayoral election. The new mayor advocated for "livelihood over infrastructure." Food-based town development became the "previous mayor's policy," and the sign for the promotion office was quietly removed. However, the facilities that had already begun construction could not be stopped. In 2019, the following year, the mayor did not attend the opening ceremony of the "Hamabessho Fish Pavilion" that opened at the port.
The enthusiasm for promotion faded, leaving only the expenses. In 2020, COVID-19 hit. The number of visitors to the Fish Pavilion was 20% of what was expected, and the designated manager withdrew. In 2021, Section Chief Sano, who had handled everything since the launch, was transferred. His successors changed every two years, and only the handover documents grew thicker. No one could answer the question, "Is there a precedent for this?" anymore.
One day in 2022, the last restaurant serving the sea-and-mountain rice bowl quietly removed the dish from its menu. Not a single person at the city hall noticed.
5. Things that began to mingle outside the administration
In the autumn of 2023, a small eatery opened in a vacant store in the old Bessho town area.
There were two owners: the wife of a young fisherman from Hamaura and the son of a yuzu farmer from Sugitani. The menu featured a simmered fish head set meal and dumpling soup seasoned with yuzu pepper. The flavors of the Hamaura fishing hut and the flavors of the Sugitani mountains met for the first time on a single tray. They did not use any subsidies. They did not consult with the city. Without paying respects to anyone in town, the two simply served the flavors of their own homes.
Kurata learned of the shop after she began organizing the archives. When she went at lunchtime, the shop was filled with local customers. As she ate the simmered fish head, she remembered her own words from 10 years ago. "It's not that Hamabessho has nothing." That realization had been correct. What was wrong was the move that followed.
We created before we searched.
Essay: What to take away from the 10 years of Hamabessho
Hamabessho City is a fictional town. However, everything that happened over these 10 years is real. Many local gourmet dishes created in conference rooms, roadside stations where about 30% nationwide are said to be in the red, food-themed facilities that are only busy in their first year, B-grade gourmet dishes that failed to land in daily life after the event, and projects that stop with the transfer of key personnel. There is a clear pattern to the failures of food-based town development in Japan.
The root of Hamabessho's failure, while appearing complex, actually boils down to just one thing: "We created the town's food without searching for it."
As the law shown by Shinichi Tawaraya, author of "Town Revitalization with B-Grade Local Gourmet," states, cuisine is not something to be created, but something to be searched for first. Hamabessho had buen-chazuke, simmered fish head, and yuzu pepper. Even if the town name changed due to the merger, there were roots in the kitchens of each old town. If they had started from those roots, the facilities and events would have had different results.
The change of the mayor, the entanglements of old families, the precedent-based thinking of the government, and the vertical division of the prefecture. A headwind certainly blew in Hamabessho. However, these are not the root causes of the failure. Projects with roots do not collapse in a slight headwind. Jeonju's bibimbap and Yaizu's bonito flakes have survived political changes and recessions. The reason it collapsed was because it had no roots.
I would like to narrow down and organize the clues to take away into three points.
First, do not create cuisine, but search for it. A town's food is not in conference rooms, but in kitchens, fishing huts, and fields. If it is a town created by a merger, do not force it into one, but start by acknowledging the roots of each old town. "Having multiple local foods" is not a weakness, but a resource.
Second, facilities and events come after the "roots." Projects that reverse this order will collapse due to winds that blow in every town, such as changes in mayors or personnel transfers. Before building a facility, ask whose daily life that cuisine is rooted in. Before holding an event, count whether there are shops where customers who have returned to the town can eat.
Third, do not disturb or extinguish the small buds that have begun to mingle outside the administration. The signs of Hamabessho's regeneration were born not from the city's plan, but from the eatery of the two young people. The best thing the administration can do is not to incorporate it into a "city project." It is to quietly prepare an environment where it can continue and convey it to the outside as a story. The administration should be an editor, not a player.
Hamabessho City does not exist anywhere. However, it exists little by little somewhere in your town. To ensure that no official is born 10 years from now who has to write their own termination report for a project they created—the question to ask is before the first meeting: "Isn't our town's food already in someone's kitchen?"
Where are the "roots" of your town?
The Gastronomy City Research Group offers a "Gastronomy City Diagnosis" to visualize a town's strengths based on the relationships between its food resources, history, and key players. Before you go and create a "seafood and mountain bowl," start by exploring. Local governments, DMOs, and business operators, please feel free to contact us.
▶ For applications and inquiries regarding the Gastronomy City Diagnosis, please contact the Gastronomy City Research Group.
https://www.gastronomy-city.org/
Sources and References (Basis for Real-Life Failure Patterns)
・Shinichi Tawara, "Town Revitalization with B-Grade Local Gourmet: Laws of Success and Failure," Gakugei Shuppan-sha https://book.gakugei-pub.co.jp/gakugei-book/9784761512941/
・Yasumasa Ushida, "'B-Grade Local Gourmet': Its Current Status and Future Challenges," Josai International University Bulletin https://www.jiu.ac.jp/files/user/education/books/pdf/833-47.pdf
・TV Tokyo Plus (Gaia no Yoake), "About 30% are operating in the red... The current state of evolved 'Roadside Stations'" https://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/plus/business/entry/2022/026210.html
・Hitoshi Kinoshita, "Why do Roadside Stations fall into financial difficulty even when facilities are developed by the government and management fees are received?" https://note.com/shoutengai/n/n4c90ae39e3ee
・Toyo Keizai Online, "The difference between 'profitable Roadside Stations' and 'Roadside Stations in the red'" https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/202726
・Examples of Roadside Station closures (Date City, Hokkaido, registration cancellation in 2022, etc.) various reports
・Previous reports in this magazine: Minamioguni edition (succession of philosophy), Nanao edition (separation of lodging and dining), Murakami edition (private sector's lonely battle), Obihiro edition (succession after municipal administration change)
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