Cascade County Commissioners approved a contract with Summit Food Services during their Feb. 14 meeting.

Commissioners Jim Larson and Rae Grulkowski voted to approve the contract for inmate food services at the Cascade County Adult Detention Center. Commissioner Joe Briggs was absent.

In December, commissioners voted to accept the bid from Summit and Tuesday’s action formalizing the contract details.

County finalizing jail food service contract

The five-year contract includes annual increases in meal prices, with the base year cost of $1.875 per meal, and 14 holiday meals.

The costs are based on an average daily jail population of 400 inmates, according to CCSO staff.

The contract also includes $200,000 from Summit for future improvements to the jail kitchen and a 20 percent commission to the county on all hot meal sales.

The contract is effective Dec. 19, 2022 for five years.

The contract was on the Dec. 27 commission agenda for full approval but was pulled since it hadn’t been finalized yet, Commissioner Joe Briggs said during a December 16 meeting.

Undersheriff Scott Van Dyken said during the meeting that the contract numbers are based on 400 meals, three times per day, 365 days a year, for a total of 438,000 meals.

The county owns the kitchen facility and equipment, Summit will have cooking staff onsite, manage the inmate workers and ordering food supplies, Van Dyken said.

Inmate kitchen workers are supervised by detention officers, he said.

The kitchen equipment is larger, more expensive and takes a lot of wear and tear, he said.

Kitchen duty is a privilege in the jail, Van Dyken said. Inmates have to be up early in the morning and cook three meals a day for 400 people. They don’t get paid, but get some other perks for good behavior and hard work.

The county received two bids for food service at the jail, one from Summit and the other Trinity Services Group.

The Trinity bid included $2.12 per meal costs and didn’t include the $200,000 toward kitchen improvements, which was a requirement in the request for bids, according to county documents.