The Yokohama Bay Sheraton Hotel & Towers (“Yokohama Bay Sheraton”) is taking the lead in creating a food cycle in the community. They run nine restaurants in it, and for many years large amounts of food waste had been a challenge. The “Ya-Cycle” distribution is a possible solution. Ya-Cycle is a “self-sustaining recycling” system, a name meaning a cycle of vegetables as we call vegetables “Yasai” in Japanese.
They compost food waste from their restaurants through a customized machine and provide the compost to contract farmers in Yokohama City, Miura City, and Yokosuka City. Then, the vegetables grown with the compost are used as ingredients at the hotel’s restaurants again.
Yokohama Bay Sheraton has continued this initiative for over ten years since 2008.
Besides The “Ya-Cycle” project, the hotel began offering “Kanagawa Breakfast” in April 2021.
“Kanagawa Breakfast” is an all-you-can-eat buffet served at one of their restaurants, “Compass.” They use a wide variety of ingredients from Kanagawa Prefecture as part of their promotion for local produce and local consumption. More than 50 items include locally made ingredients, such as dried plums from Odawara City, tofu from Isehara City, eggs from Tanzawa, dried fish and seaweed from Miura City, and pickles from Mitsuzawa Cho.
The placemats and menu boards introduce their latest activity to customers. It is the hotel’s intention to get people interested in local consumption so that they support producers in their area by choosing local food.