Pilgrims visiting Sabarimala temple in Kerala received only one tin of aravana payasam each during September’s Kanni-month poojas, as reserve stocks came under pressure before the temple’s scheduled closure. The shortage marked a rare disruption to the supply of the sweet rice-and-jaggery offering that pilgrims consider central to their visit.
Sabarimala, the hill shrine dedicated to Lord Ayyappa, ranks among the world’s largest annual pilgrimage sites. Millions of devotees travel to the temple each year, with the heaviest footfall arriving during the Mandalam-Makaravilakku season, which runs from roughly mid-November to mid-January. Aravana payasam, prepared from rice and jaggery, is distributed year-round during monthly poojas and forms a core part of the pilgrimage experience.
The scale of the shortfall becomes clear in the production numbers. The temple’s aravana plant normally turns out between 2 lakh and 2.25 lakh tins a day, equivalent to 200,000 to 225,000 tins. Ahead of the Kanni-month poojas, authorities had built up a reserve of 3.20 lakh tins, or 320,000, against typical seasonal demand of 2.50 lakh to 2.80 lakh tins. More than 80% of that pre-shutdown reserve was exhausted within two days of the temple reopening.
The Travancore Devaswom Board, which administers the temple, attributed the shortage to two overlapping factors. The aravana production plant had been temporarily shut for capacity-enhancement work. At the same time, pilgrim numbers surged beyond projections, driven by a cluster of school and office holidays and by devotees arriving earlier than usual over concerns about adverse weather. Officials said neither factor alone would have caused significant strain, but the two arriving together left little room for error.
Government and board respond
Kerala’s Devaswom Minister, K. Muraleedharan, said the state government was tracking the situation. “The government is monitoring the situation closely,” he said. “It is the government’s responsibility to ensure that devotees do not face difficulties.” The Travancore Devaswom Board’s president echoed that message on 23 September, saying the shortfall followed “the arrival of a higher number of devotees than our estimates.” He also dismissed reports of friction between the board and the state government. “No such differences of opinion exist,” he said. “Preparations for the coming season are taking place on a priority basis.”
Alongside the immediate response, the board has tightened quality checks on the ingredients used to prepare aravana payasam. Officials said the stricter testing regime is meant to screen out substandard raw material and to remove middlemen from the procurement chain, a shift aimed at steadying supply ahead of the temple’s busiest months.
Capacity upgrades at the plant are due for completion by 10 October 2026, adding roughly 1 lakh tins, or 100,000, of daily output. That would lift total capacity to about 3.25 lakh tins a day, in time for the Thulam-month poojas that follow. The additional capacity is also intended to let the board build a buffer stock before the Mandalam-Makaravilakku season begins in mid-November. Demand for aravana payasam rises sharply during that season, well beyond what the Kanni-month poojas required.
The Sabarimala aravana payasam shortage is not an isolated case. Ritual food systems tied to religious continuity face similar strains elsewhere. That concern has prompted efforts to document and safeguard traditional food practices among indigenous communities. One recent project catalogued food heritage across ten indigenous peoples of the Americas, launched in Cusco, Peru. For Sabarimala, the test now is whether the plant’s expanded capacity holds through Thulam-month before the far larger Mandalam-Makaravilakku crowds arrive.
