Harvesting fish is an inherently messy job, with slippery creatures crawling around on the water. Shinkei is working on improvements with automated systems that ship fish more humanely and reliably, potentially resulting in a completely different seafood economy.
On many fishing boats, fish are left to suffocate on deck, where they flop around and get injured, increasing the chance of bacterial infection, shortening their shelf life, and making them taste bad.
A Japanese technique called Ikejime is one such alternative, essentially equivalent to a spike penetrating the brain rather than a long, dirty death. However, this requires a certain degree of expertise, and there is a limit to the number of fish that one person can handle. That's where Shinkei comes in. Automating the process ensures that the fish is not damaged and the resulting meat lasts longer and is of higher quality.
The last time I spoke with the company was in 2022, when it deployed its first prototypes on ships and was testing them in the unpredictable ocean environment. The machine holds the fish in place, identifies the type and shape, and from there determines where exactly the brain is, allowing the brain to spike quickly and accurately. The fish is now finished, but must be exsanguinated in an ice bath immediately afterwards.
Founder Saif Khawaja said Shinkei has since moved from water-based spikes to mechanical spikes and other improvements it makes as it moves from prototypes to mass-produced units to make the machines more reliable. He said he has made improvements. .
The improved machines can also be connected modularly, allowing for parallel processing streams, and the computer vision stack for analyzing fish on blocks will also be improved, as well as new fish species.
And, of course, the company raised money. He's $6 million, which should help move it from pilot to production. The company aims to have 10 units in production by the end of the year. Shinkei is also working on a second machine that will run a second office, essentially destroying the spinal cord and leaving no trace of the central nervous system, bringing it one step closer to filet mignon. Masu.
Shinkei prototype loaded on a fishing boat, left. Co-founder Saif Khawaja, right. Image credit: Shinkei
Khawaja sees the automation of the heart system, its technology, and ikejime as the beginning of a major shift in the seafood economy. Beyond hoping that more humane harvesting methods become widespread, there are also a number of potentially far-reaching ramifications.
When it comes to the fishing industry, there is a huge amount of waste, no doubt in part because the ocean is considered an inexhaustible resource. By the way, it's not! And many fish are heading toward extinction due to overfishing.
Part of this waste is that the fish doesn't last long as a luxury item. We've all seen the signs of fish, market price, delivered this morning. Because tomorrow the fish will be good enough to be grilled with sauce or served in a salad, and the day after tomorrow it will be composted or animal food.
Consumers and restaurants are accepting this in the same way we once accepted that milk would go bad and had to be delivered every few days. Our relationship with milk changed when packaging technology allowed milk to be stored for weeks instead of days. Similarly, when the humane slaughter of cattle was mandated by the FDA in the 1970s, it became the new standard, along with associated costs and supply chain changes.
Fish harvested using Shinkei's system (top) and conventional (bottom) – tissue damage and contamination leading to accelerated deterioration are visible. Image credit: Shinkei
Khawaja expects similar changes to be occurring in seafood. Fish killed with ikejime rather than other methods will be preserved much longer, and its fine taste and texture will keep it for perhaps a week rather than a day or two. The entire deterioration process slows down.
This means restaurants won't have to buy as much fish, and perhaps a quarter of it will go to waste, but they will end up paying more for less high-quality fish that can be stored longer. Masu. Such changes can change entire industries.
For example, over the past few decades we have seen a huge exodus of meat processing workers overseas. Khawaja said 1 billion pounds of salmon alone was sent to China for processing because it doesn't make economic sense to do it in China, where people demand higher wages.
As the value of a single fish rises and it becomes easier to process it locally, the economics of processing it overseas (which are absurd to begin with) may become moot. Fish can be caught here and can stay here, and so can all the jobs associated with industry.
Expensive fish can also put negative pressure on overfishing. Things change if a boat allows him to make the same amount of money with 700 fish as he once made with 1,000 fish. Fewer boats will need to collect far beyond legal or ethical levels to survive as a business.
“This is a net gain in efficiency across the supply chain,” Khawaja said. “I really think the problem is particularly pronounced in the seafood industry and many of these jobs are dangerous. I worked as a deckhand and almost died. “We want to take dangerous jobs away and create new environments for skilled workers, rather than creating a closed supply chain.”
This funding round was led by Cantos, along with 8VC, Impatient Ventures, Susa Ventures, Carya Venture Capital, Ravelin Capital, Red & Blue Ventures, Undeterred Capital, and existing investors.