DuPage board OKs 1-year jail food contract

More than a year after being named the food provider at DuPage County jail in Wheaton, Minnesota-based A'viands Food & Services Management has a contract to do the job.

The company originally was awarded the pact in May 2007, but a lawsuit brought by longtime jail food provider Aramark accusing the county of unfair bidding practices prompted officials to revoke the contract and rebid it.

A'viands has been working at the jail on a series of temporary contracts since the original contract was pulled. The company was paid about $1.5 million for roughly 15 months of work.

On Tuesday, the county board approved a yearlong contract that pays A'viands a little more than $790,000 to provide 1,033,315 meals for inmates and corrections officers. That's less than 77 cents a meal.

Aramark's bid would have cost taxpayers 91 cents a meal for a total of nearly $950,000 for the year.

"We're thrilled it's over," said Linda Kurzawa, the vice chairman of the county board's judicial and public safety committee. "We'll rebid it in a year, but we can use the process that worked this time."

It took an unprecedented four rounds of bidding to finally determine which company would provide meals at the jail. After vendors squabbled over nutritional values of meals during earlier bidding rounds, the county finally decided to allow the companies to create menus that would be approved independently and bid out the contract based on the approved vendor-generated menus. In the end, A'viands won the contract using Aramark's menu, Kurzawa said.

The contract goes into effect Oct. 23. It calls for a total of 903,375 inmate meals, 82,125 special diet meals, 32,850 staff meals and 14,965 sack meals. The meal figures are based on a daily head count of 971, according to the contract.