French baker Jean-Louis Hecht has come up with a way of selling freshly-baked baguettes around the clock, with a 24-hour vending machine.

The automated baguette dispenser bakes partially pre-cooked loaves and dispenses them to customers at 90p a time.

After a decade of planning he has two machines, one in his home city of Paris and another in the north-east town of Hombourg-Haut.

The dispensers sold almost 4,500 loaves in July and in its debut month moved 1,600 baguettes. The machine holds 120 pieces and everything is fresh with any product not sold within 72 hours being tossed away.

"This is the bakery of tomorrow," said Mr Hecht, who plans to expand across Europe.

"If other bakers don't want to enter the niche, they're going to get decimated."

Mr Hecht, who lives above the bakery he owns, was almost forced to come up with the 24-hour idea after his customers would continually come knocking at his door looking for bread even though he was closed.