Seremoni, the consumer brand under Shinkei Systems Corp., is stocking its sockeye salmon in a handful of Whole Foods Market Inc. locations across Los Angeles.
While the salmon cuts may seem indistinguishable on the shelves, Seremoni’s were sourced using a proprietary robot inspired by Japanese fishing practices.
On Wednesday, Shinkei Systems added Whole Foods to its growing roster of retailers across the U.S. and Japan, which span local specialty seafood markets to a Wegmans Food Markets Inc. location in New York City. Seremoni fish is already available at select restaurants across the country, including 11 high-end spots in Los Angeles such as James Beard-nominated Holbox, Santa Monica-based Crudo e Nudo, and Little Fish in Echo Park and Hollywood.
In a few short years, Shinkei Systems has carved out a niche for its brand of premium seafood. Its refrigerator-sized robot, called Poseidon, sits on fishing boats and uses computer vision and automation to replicate ike jime, a Japanese fishing technique that kills a fish instantly by spiking its brain. The quick death limits the stress hormones that the animal releases, which make for a higher-quality product.
“We are basically scaling up these artisanal handling techniques that are very close analog to kosher slaughter for cows, or halal. Rather than letting the fish flop around, we spike each fish in the brain,” Saif Khawaja, co-founder of Shinkei Systems, told the Business Journal in 2025.”
Best of both worlds
Shinkei Systems is betting it can offer the best of both world when it comes to approaches for harvesting. Most commercially caught fish are hauled up in nets and left to suffocate, a slow death that floods their muscle with lactic acid and reduces the shelf life. While better for the fish and customers, ike jime takes years to master and must be done one fish at a time.
“That stops the experience of stress with the fish and then removes the blood in the meat,” Khawaja said. “And in turn, the meat is much less acidic, there’s less nutrition for bacteria to grow, and the meat can last three times as long. It’ll taste much better; it’ll retain more of its weight.”
This niche solution to a niche problem has managed to net Shinkei Systems over $40 million in funding, per PitchBook. The company was founded in 2021 by Reed Ginsberg and Khawaja, after the latter read about the inhumane methods used to harvest fish.
