A cute robot dog in Japan helps prevent the spread of Covid-19 in food shops by manning the counters and serving ice cream to customers.

Tokyo-based company Connected Robotics developed the blue plastic robot dog named Reita-Kun to help coffee shops and ice cream parlours cope with social distancing during the pandemic.

It can prepare a soft serve ice cream in just 27 seconds which means it can total up to 133 cups and cones of the creamy delight in a day.

Reita-Kun mans the counter and receives the order before facing the ice cream machine to squeeze out the product and serve it to the customer.

The innovation was first revealed by the company in the 15th Eating Out Business Week at the Tokyo Big Sight on August.

The company said the robot can prevent the possible spread of coronavirus with less staff to customer contact inside shops.

Connected Robotics said: "We introduced Reita to give restaurants better options to deal with the pandemic.

"The robots will attract more customers because they have unique services. Not only that, the time spent in training part-timers will also decrease with the robots."

After it was launched, the robot was made available in a variety of colourful designs aside from the blue dog.

It now comes in a violet dragon with white smoke coming out of its nose, and a pink puppy so adorable it can melt hearts while producing the cold treat.