Two Homer fishermen who introduced robotics as their new silent crew member this summer found themselves earning a better price for fewer salmon valued for their higher quality meat and longer shelf life.

“For salmon I think it has potential to be pretty profitable,” said Tadhg Scholz, a 27-year-old harvester and owner of the F/V Arctic Wave. Working with Shinkei Systems, an American robotics and seafood technology company headquartered in El Segundo, California, Scholz said he was paid $3.70 a pound for salmon, compared to the dock price of $2.80 paid at the dock for other sockeyes this summer.

Shinkei is also sourcing Seremoni-grade black cod from the Western Gulf to Southeast Alaska, relying on strong relationships with fishermen.

Seremoni grade is an ultra-premium standard of wild-caught seafood processed using automated, robotic ike-jime — a traditional Japanese technique of spiking and bleeding performed on fishing boats immediately after the catch.

Automated ike-jime uses computer vision and sensor fusion to scan individual fish, identify species, pinpoint a 3-millimeter brain target, and spike it while cutting the gills in a fraction of a second. The technique replaces traditional suffocation or electrocution on a boat deck, preventing the release of stress hormones and lactic acid that sour the meat.

Shinkei Systems provided the robotics equipment this summer to Scholz and Kirian Kuzman, owner of the F/V Arbiter, both of whom completed the season in the black. Both harvesters said they plan to work with Shinkei again in 2027.

“It was a pretty bad salmon run, but I did make extra money because of the machines,” said Scholz. “It was profitable.  I made an extra 20%. If they hadn’t sent a free engineer (from Shinkei) I probably would have made only an extra 10% if I had to pay another deck hand.”

The fish he did not put through the robotics he sold to Arron Kallenberg’s Wild Alaskan Company, with whom he does a lot of business.

With reports of the El Nino impact on weather in the coming season already surfacing, how strong is the salmon run into Cook Inlet likely to be in 2027?

“Lower harvests naturally increase prices,” said Angelina Skowronski, director of marine resources at Shinkei/Seremoni. “Our Seremoni grade premium exvessel prices ebb and flow during the season in line with the industry.”

“They were more than fair,” said Kuzmin, a third-generation commercial fisherman who has been harvesting for 21 years. “Shinkei is easy to work with and easy to communicate with.”

Using the robotics, he said he could immediately see the difference in the meat quality.

“This year wasn’t the greatest, but because of the (robotics) machine it made my season profitable,” he said.

The Poseidon robotics, as Shinkei refers to them, are named after Poseidon, the god of the sea in Greek mythology.

“We selected Cook Inlet as an ideal location for the robot,” said Skowronski. “The makeup of the salmon fishery, size of the vessels, quality of the fish and access from the road system made it an ideal location for year one of our program.”

Shinkei purchased sockeye, chum and coho salmon, with a concentration on the red salmon.

Harvesters “made approximately one third more than their counterparts by working with us,” she said.  “We think this was a nice upside to our partner fishermen who took a chance on us in our first year, given that it was a low volume year.”

The Seremoni-grade salmon is available at Whole Foods markets in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, and at select restaurants nationwide.

“Seremoni-grade reflects our team’s boat-to-plate obsession with quality,” said Saif Khawaja, co-founder and CEO of Shinkei Systems. “Salmon gives us another opportunity to bring that philosophy to millions more people while we continue to champion American fishermen and transform how premium seafood is harvested.”

The addition of salmon builds on Shinkei’s growing portfolio of Seremoni-grade seafood, including black cod, American red snapper, vermillion rockfish and red grouper. The company has an estimated private market valuation of between $50 million and $100 million, according to venture data platforms.