How do you build a globally scaled seafood company rooted in ancient Japanese techniques, humane animal treatment, and radical transparency – all before the age of 26?

Meet Saif Khawaja, the founder and CEO of Seremoni, a startup that’s reinventing the seafood industry from the ground up. 

Launched in 2024, Seremoni is a vertically integrated company setting a new benchmark for quality and ethics in seafood by merging time-honored Japanese craft with cutting-edge technology. To bring his vision to life, Saif assembled a dream team: engineers from SpaceX, veterans from premium seafood brands, and small-scale fishermen from across the globe. 

His mission? To build a new kind of supply chain – one powered by empathy, precision engineering, and economic equity – and to make Michelin-quality seafood accessible to everyone.

In this episode, Saif shares how a Wharton thesis and a philosophical reckoning ignited a radical idea. He walks us through the early days of grit and experimentation, the challenges of leading teams twice his age, and why he believes world-changing companies are often born from deep moral conviction, not spreadsheets.

Show notes:

0:25: Saif Khawaja, Founder & CEO, Seremoni – Saif opens up about how reading Peter Singer’s essay “If Fish Could Scream” profoundly impacted him and inspired the development of Seremoni and how his hands-on experience as a commercial fisherman exposed him to artisanal methods and the biology of how stress affects flavor and decomposition in fish. He talks about how the company’s tools and robotics scale ikejime techniques in the U.S., pursuing vertical integration to ensure quality and pay fishermen more fairly, and how he convinced investors, chefs and retailers to buy into his vision. Saif also discusses his management of a growing team of over 30 people, and how he is building a values-driven movement that is guided by a strong moral compass.

Brands in this episode: Seremoni, Ōra, Oishii