UTAH STATE PRISON — In these tough economic times, corrections officials are pitching the state on a new plan to feed thousands of inmates and ultimately save money.

The Utah Department of Corrections is asking for nearly $22 million to build a "cook/chill" kitchen facility that will serve TV dinner-type food to inmates here in Draper, at the prison in Gunnison and halfway houses.

"All the food would be prepared on site, at this facility, it's flash-frozen and it's transported out to the other areas where they are reheated," said state corrections spokeswoman Angie Welling.

The Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison is preparing to expand again, with a 192-bed housing unit and a 288-bed unit to be requested. That will bring with it the need for another kitchen facility. The prison at Point of the Mountain needs a new kitchen, too, Welling said. Community correctional facilities contract out for their food.

But rather than build kitchens, corrections is pitching a cook/chill kitchen that can make food in Draper and ship it out to the other prison facilities.

"Our analysis says up to $2 million a year we could save in food costs," she said. "You can buy all the food that's less expensive at the time, you prepare it, flash freeze it, you have it on hand."

Another incentive corrections is trying to sell state budget officials on is emergency preparedness. The cook/chill kitchen would create a 30-day supply of food for 6,000. In the case of an earthquake, a disaster or a pandemic, corrections would be able to feed the community if required to do so.

"It just makes sense," Welling said. "If the facility's still up and running, we can cook meals for our own inmates and give that 30-day supply to the community."

It would cost about $8.2 million for a new kitchen in Gunnison. Building a better kitchen facility in Draper would cost $13.1 million for a total of $21.3 million. Corrections brass said the state could create the cook/chill kitchen for $21.7 million.

"It'll pay for itself in a dozen years," Welling said. "We see it as kind of an innovative approach to something that has to happen, which is to feed our inmates."

But in lean budget times, it faces some competition for funding. At the Oct. 1 meeting of the state Building Board, 31 buildings were proposed for capital development funding. The cook/chill kitchen is competing for funding with a new facility for the Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind, a juvenile court in Ogden, an emergency operations center for the Utah Department of Homeland Security and building upgrades for most of Utah's universities and colleges.