The smell of freshly baked wheat rolls wafted inside a warehouse-type building, where 16,000 meals a day are prepared for some 8,000 inmates in Maricopa County’s five jails.

It costs the county $6.5 million a year to feed detainees, according to Peter Pilat, commander of the food services division for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. All the meals are prepared at the Sheriff’s Food Factory, which opened in 2004 next to Lower Buckeye Jail in Phoenix.

The building, which has a freezer longer than a football field that can hold 1,600 pallets of food includes a bakery, a peanut butter packaging room, a special diets room, and a bulk production area where potatoes, onions and fruit are cleaned and prepared. The Food Factory is capable of producing 60,000 meals a day.

“So far this template we have now is very cost-effective, both in labor production and inventory,” Mr. Pilat said.

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Recently, jail food came under the spotlight. In October, several detainees staged a three-day hunger strike for better food as advocates claimed the Sheriff’s Office fed inmates tasteless and outdated food, not fit for dogs.

But, as Mr. Pilat explained, nothing could be further from the truth as the meals are what he calls “heart-healthy” and follow the American dietary guidelines for adult males from the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and of Agriculture.

That means the two meals served daily total 2,600 calories, Mr. Pilat said. The department switched to two meals a day in 2000 to save money on labor, cleaning products and food, he added. For example, the county was able to go from spending $23,000 a month in cleaning chemicals to $13,000 a month, and went from 178 civilian staff and detention officers to 126, he said. Civilian staff includes a dietitian and a person who oversees the Food Factory’s sanitation.

About 150 detainees also work at the Food Factory, helping prep the food such as funneling 25-pound buckets of peanut butter through a machine and into serving-size packages, cleaning food trays and packaging the meals for transportation to the jails. They are not paid and are instead given extra food for their work.

About 2 percent of the food supply comes from donations from food brokers in Rio Rico or Nogales, Mr. Pilat said. One such donation included boxes of fresh yellow bell peppers, which will go into a stew.

The inmates’ breakfast, served from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., consists of a carton of milk, a 5-ounce wheat roll, a 3-ounce packet of peanut butter, a jelly packet, 12 ounces of fruit and a pack of cookies.

By the numbers:

•800,000 pounds of food are handled weekly

•12,000 pounds of potatoes are cleaned and prepared weekly

•75,000 pounds of fresh fruit washed weekly

•144,000 rolls baked weekly

•6,300 gallons of stew prepared weekly

•6,300 special diets prepared weekly

•28,000 pounds of side dishes such as rice or potatoes prepared weekly

•28,000 pounds of fresh or frozen vegetables prepared weekly

•42,000 trays washed weekly

•74,500 packets of peanut butter produced weekly

Source: MCSO

For the hot dinner served from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., inmates chow down on a barbecue soy stew. The textured soy powder, which has a longer shelf life, when reconstitute with water takes on the consistency of meat chunks and is mixed with beans, potatoes, carrots, onions, peas and other vegetables.

The sides consist of a starch that is either rice or mashed potatoes and a vegetable that generally consists of broccoli, carrots or mixed vegetables, along with a 3-ounce roll, 4 ounces of fruit, cookies and water. The food, with milk powder added in for calcium, is bland as to keep the sodium level below 2,300 milligrams, Mr. Pilat explained.

There is no rotten food served, according to Mr. Pilat, who said inmates are expected to inspect their meals first and address any wrongs with a correctional officer.

Staff and inmates process about 1,000 orders a day, said Jorge Negrete who works at the canteen. All of the profits go to pay for inmate programs such as classes and to restock the shelves. The canteen is totally self-sufficient and uses no taxpayer dollars, he added.

Sgt. Gillett said Sheriff Penzone, who took office in January, plans no changes to the jail menu.