B.J. Novak: ‘I fully support petri dish meat’

Actor B.J. Novak is banking on the benefits of synthetic meat grown in science labs.
The 37-year-old plays real-life financial consultant Harry J. Sonneborn in new movie The Founder, based on the story of Ray Kroc – the business mastermind who turned small family burger hut McDonald’s into a goliath global fast food chain.
In some ways B.J.’s life imitates art, with the star explaining he has an enterprising food mind.
“This sounds sci-fi, but I think it’s a real shot at changing everything – do you know about the companies that are using meat stem cells to clone meat in a lab?” he asked Women’s Wear Daily before revealing: “They take the cells of animal meat in a petri dish and grow and grow and grow it. The same as you can graft one apple into a million different apple trees, you could just get one unlucky cow and feed the world forever.”
“I’m supporting a few companies that do that. Memphis Meats is one,” he shared of his business interests in the cloned meat market.
Novak’s The Founder co-star Michael Keaton, who plays Kroc in the film, also had a burger investment past at the beginning of his career, but his desire to invest in famous California based burger joint chain In-N-Out didn’t pan out.
“I hadn’t lived in L.A. very long,” he told WENN. “I had just made a little bit of dough when I moved to California and there weren’t many In-N-Outs. I had one and I got on the phone with the guy who was my business manager, who was managing what I had – which was about $1,100 – and I said, ‘I really had a good hamburger. I think we ought to look into this thing called In-N-Out Burger.”
The manager looked into the idea but discovered the company was family owned and run, and there was no opportunities for outsiders.