It’s the chickpea dip that goes beautifully with PITTA – so it’s a PITY that Sainsbury’s has temporarily stopped selling houmous.

The supermarket giant, with stores at Aspley and Market Street, has ceased to stock houmous due to a ‘production issue’.

The dip will be back on Sainsbury’s shelves but until then some stores have taken to leaving houmous recipes on their empty shelves.

Other branches have been placing tins of chickpeas and tahini (sesame paste) where pots of the dip would normally sit in an attempt to placate houmous junkies.

Sainsbury's runs out of houmous
Sainsbury's runs out of houmous

Houmous aficionado SamSam posted on Twitter: “Well. That’s my Saturday night ruined.”

Charlotte posted: “I wondered why I couldn’t get any last week! Damn you, Sainsburys!”

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “We’ve temporarily removed a number of houmous lines from sale due to a production issue at our supplier.”