In addition to being a celebrity chef and successful restaurateur, Rick Moonen is also something of an activist when it comes to farmed salmon. He doesn't support farms that don't pay attention to their environmental impact.
Unlike many farmed salmon critics, however, Moonen, who is the chef-owner of RM Seafood in Las Vegas, doesn't shy away from using the farmed product when he knows it's being produced right.
"There are companies that are doing a much, much better job," Moonen told SeafoodSource.
The world's food needs are changing, and the farmed salmon industry is changing with those needs, Moonen said.
"Half of the world right now is consuming seafood from a farm, (and) 10 years ago, that wasn't true," he said.
Restaurateurs who want to satisfy their customers with salmon year-round will be forced to look into farmed salmon sooner or later, and Moonen said it's worth it to put in the effort and research where the product is coming from.
Chief among the questions, he said, is to ask about feed ratios.
"If it takes five pounds of sardines to make one pound of salmon (that's) inefficient, and years ago, that's the way it was."
Today, he said, aquaculture scientists have gotten that ratio down to under a pound of feed to make a pound of salmon, a ratio that's much better for the environment and for the quality of the fillet for human consumption.
To hear more of Chef Moonen's thoughts on farmed salmon, check out the video below:
