Durham University students celebrate hummus society

Forget Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter, these students have a new way of socialising - hummus.

The hummus society at Durham University was set up last year to bring people together with a common love of the dip.

President Naomi Green was inspired to set it up after she and her friends couldn't get enough of it

She said "I'm a huge food lover and I think food brings people together. I just really love hummus.

"I came up with the idea actually really early on.

"We were just sort of making jokes about how much we love hummus, talking about hummus memes, which is a page on Facebook, and all hummus-related things."

Despite only becoming an official society in November, the group has 175 members.

They meet at the student union and pride themselves on providing a selection of hummus.

It adds to the university's range of other quirky societies which include the chocolate society, quidditch society and the assassin's society, in which students play games and only pretend to kill each other.

During their hummus get-togethers, the members eat, socialise and relax away from their studies.

Hummus has become increasingly popular, with Britain consuming about 12,000 tonnes of it a year.

That has led to warnings this week that a shortage could be on the cards due to a lack of chickpeas because of poor growing conditions.