DNAroid 1000 - Smartphone DNA tester

1st April 2013

With the horsemeat scandal still reverberating around Europe, consumer confidence in their food is at an all-time low. Although food manufacturers say that the presence of rogue animal products is merely a "labelling issue", citizens are concerned that their porcine, bovine and ovine-based products are perhaps in fact equine in origin.. or worse.

But help is at hand with a new British food DNA testing kit called the DNAroid 1000, which as the name suggests runs on Android-based smartphones. Consisting of a DNA probe attached via a USB cable and an on-phone app, manufacturers Avrili Diagnostics say that the DNAroid can analyse almost any meat product and come up with the main ingredients within 5 minutes. The DNA analysis is then displayed on an easy-to-use pie chart (a meat pie chart perhaps?)

Some potential customers might be put off by the idea of sticking a cable into their food, but Avrili say that they are working on an NFC version. An iPhone version was under consideration, but Avrili were recently inexplicably banned from the Apple Store after releasing an app that worked out how much child labour went into making certain brands of gadgets.

Avrili loaned us a pre-production version of the DNAroid 1000, which we set about testing. Our first tests were on a Meatulike Value Burger which came back with some rather disturbing results (pictured). This breakdown of ingredients is somewhat offputting, and perhaps it might encourage more people to become vegetarians.

The manufacturers say that the DNAroid 1000 should be on the market from today, 1st April 2013, at a recommended retail price of €99.99½.

(This is an April Fool's prank - you can see ones from past years here)

DNAroid 1000 Gallery (click to enlarge)