The KAMOGAWA BAKERY opened in November 2020 at the corner of Kawaramachi and Marutamachi, and is actively advancing to realize the Mind Our Tourism agenda for sustainable tourism in Kyoto by accommodating food-culture diversity including veganism and halal, taking measures to reduce the environmental burden, and installing a non-contact system adapted to today’s need for safely living in the post-COVID world. Entrepreneur Shin Miyazawa spoke about his motivations and how he came to open this bakery after running a ramen shop popular among tourists from abroad. 

“The cherry blossoms looked gray to me. They were supposed to look beautiful, but they didn’t look that way at all.”  

 

But feeling that he could not just sit down and wait, Mr. Miyazawa decided to start a new business catering to people living in Japan. It was a bakery. A bakery was bound to meet a lot of competition in Kyoto where bread culture is well established, so Mr. Miyazawa needed to consider ways to distinguish the business from others through specialization, and that was how the KAMOGAWA BAKERY, a bakery with bagels as its key bread, was born. 

 

The bakery offers a wide variety of bagels and bagel sandwiches, and also plain breads and various stuffed and dressed breads. Notably, eight out of ten items are vegan-friendly, and six out of ten are halal. 

“I wanted to make a place where everyone could enjoy dining together. It was in pursuit of this goal that I placed importance on food-related diversity at the ramen shop, offering vegan-friendly and halal menus, and it was the same with the bakery. I wanted it to be a bakery that respects food-culture diversity.” 

 

Yet bread typically uses a lot of milk, eggs, and butter. Was it not difficult for Mr. Miyazawa to make the bakery menu vegan-friendly? 

 

“Bagels are vegan-friendly to begin with, as they don’t use eggs, milk, or butter. So they were compatible with what we wanted to do. The plain bread was tricky, though. There has been great enthusiasm for high-quality plain bread in the recent years, and bakers have been competing to make the most sumptuous loaves by using lots of fresh cream and butter. It took our artisans a lot of effort to make plain bread that tastes good without any of these ingredients.” 

 

KAMOGAWA BAKERY’s breads that do not use any dairy products or eggs, beginning with the plain loaves that were the result of a lot of trial-and-error, are appreciated not only by vegans but also by people with allergies. 

 

 

“I’m not a vegan myself, so I could feel a little reserved about entering a place that loudly declares that it is vegan-friendly. I wanted the bakery to be a place where anyone could enter easily. I thought it would be fine if people first recognize the place simply as a bakery that sells good bread, and then notice that it is vegan-friendly and think about someone they know (that’s vegan). Then they could buy some bread for that person, or just tell that person about the place. I thought that that is the best way for the place to become known and gain more customers.” 

 

Mr. Miyazawa says that he thought the same way when he was running the ramen business. Then too, the idea was to “make it a place that anyone could come in easily.” 

 

“The ramen business became a business catering to travelers from overseas as a result of trying to make a place that anyone could enjoy. Creating multi-language menus and setting up cashless payment and Wi-Fi was just part of this effort. It was not that I originally wanted to create a business catering specifically to travelers from overseas. I just wanted to create a place that people from overseas as well as Japan could enjoy.” 

 

 

 

“Through my interaction at the ramen shop with tourists from other countries, I noticed a difference in awareness between Japan and the West concerning environmental issues. We used to use plastic containers, but many travelers from Western countries who saw this were like, ‘Are you still using plastic?’ So we began to reduce plastic waste and also switch to green electric power.” 

 

In order to reduce plastic waste, KAMOGAWA BAKERY uses paper bags, paper straws, and paper cups that do not need plastic lids. The bakery is also contributing to the reduction of CO2 emissions by using green electric power and by taking part in the shift toward less meat consumption. 

 

When asked about people’s reactions to his efforts, Mr. Miyazawa said that the efforts create an added value for his customers, and that he feels that the area around the bakery has high SDGs-related awareness, there being an elementary school and many people who care about education. He also said that it is important to promote not only the customers’ but also the staff’s awareness. His active efforts for the SDGs are a part of employee education that will ultimately lead to the securement of good human resources. 

 

The KAMOGAWA BAKERY is also ahead of others in efforts to curb the spread of COVID. There are no tongs in the bakery. Instead, the customers use a touch panel to order items of which samples are displayed in a showcase, and the payment is done without the staff using their hands. The purpose is to completely eliminate contact between the customers and staff. It is a system adapted to today’s “with coronavirus” age, and it also helps to reduce food loss because, unlike usual bakeries, there is no need to line up many of the same items on the shelves. 

 

“As an entrepreneur, one could either reduce the size of the business to avoid going into the red, or invest even more to expand and evolve. I could have chosen to do the former, but that would have meant parting ways with the incredible people who worked for me. In order to survive together, I had to invest and start something new.” 

 

The opening of the first KAMOGAWA BAKERY at Kawaramachi-Marutamachi was followed by a second one in February 2021, this time in Zeze, Shiga prefecture. Mr. Miyazawa also plans to set up a central kitchen and begin franchising in the future. 

 

“Entrepreneurs with SDGs-related awareness are increasing, so I want to bring together people who share the same vision and continue to expand and evolve businesses using the know-how I’ve acquired so far. When inbound tourism comes back, I hope the bakery will become a place that is balanced and harmonious—a place where both people from overseas and Japanese people can enjoy together.” 

 

Mr. Miyazawa, who has built businesses with the hope of making places for everyone to enjoy food together, envisions a future in which Kyoto tourism will harmonize with the daily lives of local residents when tourism from overseas returns to Kyoto again. 

Kyoto City and Kyoto City Tourism Association have laid down the Code of Conduct for Sustainable Tourism in Kyoto to be cherished and implemented by all people involved in tourism in Kyoto. Together with the tourism industry and its workers, and the residents, let us realize sustainable tourism in this city.