Robots are being used to stack shelves at corner shops in Japan - keeping staff safe from Covid-19.

The FamilyMart chain showed off their first robot shop assistant, named Famima, in one of their stores in Tokyo on August 26.

It was developed by the Japanese robotics firm Telexistence to handle bottles and cups of ramen noodles.

Famima can take over the laborious duties of stacking shelves and re-organising the displayed producrs.

However, the robot cannot yet work fully on its own as it is controlled by a human wearing a virtual-reality head gear from inside an office.

The convenience store company said the robot could help reduce the spread of the coronavirus among their staff and customers. Fewer staff have to go into the shop, which reduces the chance of the virus from being transmitted between people in close contact.

FamilyMart now aims to introduce the robots into 20 of their 16,600 stores by 2022, with each participating store assigned one robot.