Fisheye Camera

If you could distil decades of tuna mercantile expertise and know-how into a smartphone app, would you do it? Kazuhiro Shimura did.

- Kazuhiro Shimura

The idea for the Tuna Scope came about, says creative director Kazuhiro Shimura of Dentsu’s Creative Planning Division Four, because of the substandard sashimi he’d typically pick out and buy at a local grocery store.

“I had been wondering whether something could be done to improve this hit-or-miss experience, which happens despite having to pay the same price and the tuna looking the same as better quality fish,” he says.

Tuna brokers have developed a keen sense of intuition after decades of examining tuna tails. They’re usually able to grade the quality just by eyeballing them. Naturally, it’s a trade that’s hard to adopt. Only a limited number of tuna can be evaluated per day at a tuna auction, which makes training successors more difficult. This is where the Tuna Scope comes in.