Tomato: The bridge between Hidaka Village and the Outside World 

By Mana and Mana 

The door entering from the outside leads to an open space with high ceilings. Immediately catching the eye is a large triangular bookshelf. The bookshelf, lined with tomato books from all over the world, looks like a tree of books. A big table and sofa are elegant and the atmosphere makes it feel like history, moreover, there is an old pink rotary dial phone. The sweet and sour aroma of tomatoes and the bittersweet aroma of coffee beans wafting from the back of the room tickle one’s nose. 

“I want people to shine,” said Ms. Ono, who runs the Hidaka Village Guesthouse and Cafe, “I want people to shine. I hope this place will help people feel closer to Hidaka Village.” 

In 2019, the first guesthouse was established in Hidaka Village, located on the west side of Kochi Prefecture. Visitors coming to Hidaka Village can use it as a safe and comfortable place to stay at night, and as a café where they can enjoy dishes using Hidaka Village’s local ingredients. This guesthouse and café facility known as “Tomatoto”, serves as a transit point for tourist attractions in the village. It offers visitors the many charms of Hidaka Village based on interviews with local community members. The guest house is located near Komura Shrine, a sacred place in Hidaka Village because it has more than 1,400 years of history, and “Omu-rice Kaido”, a street lined with lots of restaurants that have unique omelets, as well as the nearby Niyodo River, where you can enjoy great nature and swimming in the crystal-clear waters of the river. In addition, some of the lodging plans with Tomatoto include the opportunity to experience a tent sauna by the Niyodo River. The rich nature and various activities allow visitors to interact with the villagers, offering a relaxing time that cannot be found in the city and a casual atmosphere that allows people to come and visit on a desire. 

Tomatato is divided into two spaces: a café and a guest-house space. The guests will first pass through to the later space. The rooms have a desk with chairs and a comfortable bed nearby, while twin rooms have even more reclining sofas for guests to enjoy a more relaxing time. There is also a deck overlooking the whole area, which can be used as a common space for chatting or playing casual table games.  

Usually, the guests need to bring their own stuff, such as a towel and toothpaste, and shampoo, to stay. If they come with nothing, Tomatato will provide them with a variety of facilities, Free and paid services such as free Wi-fi, Bath products, toothbrushes, towels, and other hygiene items are also provided, as well as a refrigerator and microwave oven that is available for use. Thus, the space for guests is well prepared for a comfortable stay night. Other benefits of this guesthouse are that up to 6 adults can stay there, and it can also be rented out to a small community such as family and friends, for private time to be enjoyed. 

As the name “Tomatoto”, it is obvious that in this café, the main dishes offered are made from tomatoes. Hidaka Village is famous in Japan for its sweet and delicious tomatoes, no wonder this village is called “Tomato Village”.  Tomatoes in this village are grown in a climate with significant temperature differences between morning and night, surrounded by mountains, and blessed with the beautiful and clean water of the Niyodo River. Their taste is a great balance of sourness and sweetness, and they are deliciously eaten and used in cooking. In addition, these tomatoes are rich in lycopene, vitamins C and E, and dietary fiber. In this way, the fact that it has good effects on health and beauty is also one of the reasons why it is attracting attention from many people. 

In Tomatoto Cafe, we can take some time to savor their menus which are made with various tomatoes originally from Hidaka Village. Even now, the local farmers continue to create new products and make efforts to experiment with various improvements, such as developing menu items that can be enjoyed by vegan and vegetarian customers. So that everyone can fully enjoy the taste of tomatoes from Hidaka Village. Visitors of Tomatoto can enjoy a menu that continues to evolve as a result of many different experiments. 

“Tomato is a part of Japanese culture,” says Ms. Ono, “Tomatoes are often thought of as a Western food because they are usually used in pasta, but they also go well with Eastern ingredients such as miso and dashi (Japanese soup stock), as well as Japanese food.” 

Tomatoto’s cafe mainly serves pasta and curry dishes, in addition to drinks such as coffee and original tomato juice. The Japanese-style tomato curry which uses “bonito dashi” attracts not only Japanese but also foreign tourists with its mellow flavor and refreshing acidity of tomatoes. 

Local ingredients are used to their fullest and are served and eaten at any moment in Hidaka Village. Tomatoto is also involved in what is called “Chisan-chishou”. This word means consuming food that is produced locally. Tomatoto is taking the lead in promoting Hidaka’s tomatoes to the outside community and helping to add value to Hidaka Village by doing so. 

Ms. Ono decided to run Tomatoto based on her experience of moving to Kochi Prefecture. She was an immigrant from Tokyo. She used to be a company employee, but the Great East Japan Earthquake which occurred in March 2011 made her rethink her life and experiences, and she started volunteering in various places in Japan to help those in need. Through volunteer activities and operating a children’s cafeteria, she met many people and was always searching for what she wanted to do and what she should move toward. It was during that time that she had the opportunity to visit Hidaka Village through an acquaintance and learned of the existence of Hidaka Village’s NPO named “Wanowa-kai.” Ms. Ono found the activities of the Wanowa-kai attractive and wanted to work for the group, so she began visiting Hidaka Village. And while then, Ms. Ono decided to move to Hidaka Village and became a member of the Regional Development Cooperation Team and actively worked to promote immigration to revitalize the local community in Hidaka Village. When she first came to Hidaka Village as a visitor from outside Hidaka, she was very troubled by the lack of lodging facilities in the village at the time. This village is very small and located in the western part of Kochi Prefecture. It has a small population of about 4,600 people in 2023, and it is about 16 km away from Kochi Station, which is the center of public transportation in Kochi Prefecture.  

Despite that Hidaka Village has a rich natural environment that is still intact and offers a variety of activities using nature that cannot be experienced in the city, but the village also lacks convenient public transportation and lodging facilities.  

“This is a major disadvantage,” Ms. Ono thought. Even if there were tourists who wanted to visit Hidaka Village, they would not be able to spend an entire day in the village because Hidaka had no facilities to stay nights. Ms. Ono moved in action to solve this problem by working with “Wanowa-kai,” to create a plan to build comfortable accommodations where visitors can spend the night promoting Hidaka Village’s attractions and the result is “Tomatoto.” 

The Wanowa-kai is an organization that began with the desire to solve the problems of the residents of Hidaka Village. It has been engaged in various activities since its inception in 2005. Currently, Wanowa-kai has three main business categories: welfare programs, cafeteria operations, and manufacturing and sales. All of these activities were born out of the “trouble” voiced by residents, and after listening carefully to their actual problems, Wanowa-kai has done what it can to support them. 

“We want to create a place where anyone can take on new challenges,” said Ms. Yasuoka who heads this organization.  

Ms.Yasuoka spoke about her work in the welfare sector. The Wanowa-kai is an organization built by mothers in their 50s.  

“We use our experiences and thoughts to find and create jobs suited to any person. We want to provide a place for everyone to practice reintegration and socialization, a place where they can be themselves.” 

Tomatoto adopts “Tomato-Miso” which is created by the employees of the manufacturing and sales division of Wanowa-kai, in the cafe’s menus. More than 20 farmers in Hidaka Village produce Hidaka-grown fruit tomatoes, which are shipped not only to the local area but also to Kyoto, Tokyo, and other main parts of Japan. However, out-of-spec tomatoes with blemishes, slightly smaller in size, or lacking in sugar content were often used to cheaply consume locally or discarded. 

“There are many tomatoes that never reach the consumer,” said Ms.Yasuoka, “because they are only slightly damaged. We did not want to waste the Hidaka tomatoes and the efforts of farmers who produced them. So Wanowa-kai decided to buy these out-of-spec tomatoes directly from the farmers and sell them as such jams, pasta sauces, soups, and other products by processing differently. Purchasing tomatoes that would have otherwise been thrown away, not only was the amount of tomatoes discarded reduced, but it also led to a new source of income for the farmers”. 

In this way, the Wanowa-kai has been proactively tackling and moving toward solutions to issues ranging from small local problems to the larger issue of regional revitalization. Its work has received high praise from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. These days, more than 2,000 visits have been made by NPOs from all over Japan as well as from regions around the world where depopulation, such as the experience by the Hidaka Village, has been progressing. 

For Hidaka Village, depopulation is a major problem. This village is estimated will face a decline in population in 2040, it is estimated the population will be decreased from 4,600 to 3,000. To overcome this great challenge, the village is making daily efforts to communicate the warm charm of Hidaka Village to the outside community and to strengthen the connection between tourists and locals. Tomatoes, a Hidaka Village product, are the bridge between tourists and locals, and promoting them is a major clue to solving the problem.  

“Since we promote Hidaka Village tomatoes as Tomatoto”, said Ms.Ono, “we are happy if people outside of this village find Hidaka Village’s tomatoes delicious. We are also satisfied if people are impressed not only with the Niyodo River nearby but also with the natural scenery that Hidaka Village holds, that its beauty and serenity,” 

Along with the “Wanowa-kai,” which creates various communities in Hidaka Village and creates borderless interactions, Ms. Ono is strengthening the connection between Hidaka Village and the outside. Ms. Ono says that she enjoys creating something new from scratch. 

“If you stay in one place, your sense of values will become rigid. I want people to visit Hidaka Village dropping by whenever, to experience a completely different urban area, to engage with new meetings to nature and people, and to feel a greater sense of happiness.”  

In this connection, according to Ms.Ono, the best part of the experience in Hidaka Village for her was coming to Hidaka Village empty-handed from her daily life in the city, working as an office worker in a suit, and going to the river in the morning with the villagers to catch fish. 

No special preparation is needed, just go on a short trip there as we are. Hidaka Village and Tomatoto are always welcoming people who are tired of their daily lives and want to experience new values.  

“My form of happiness is to keep challenging myself to do what I enjoy most and what I want to do most. It is important for me to be happy from the inside, and I want to extend that happiness as the owner of Tomatoto which PR the charm of Hidaka Village, to the people whom I work with and to customers from the outside.” 

For more information:: 

• 【公式】Eat&Stay とまとと / tomatoto / 仁淀川に歩いていけるゲストハウス 
• 高知県日高村　NPO法人 日高わのわ会 | できる人が、できる時間に、できることを。 (wanowa-hidaka.com)