ACT Corrections Minister Shane Rattenbury has said he’d like to see bread baked by Canberra prisoners on supermarket shelves for sale to the general public.

The minister announced the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) will have a $9 million bakery program along with a laundry service to help prisoners develop a work ethic, aid rehabilitation and kill restlessness. In the initial stages, the bakery products would supply food to AMC’s fast-growing in-mate population, but in the near future, the goods could make their way onto supermarket shelves.

“I’d really love to see the day where jail bread is making it out into the market in Canberra, and people can see our prisoners are doing great work as well. I think it’d have a real niche market, I think there would be a certain something about bread baked that was coming from jail,” Minister Rattenbury told the Canberra Times.

The prison industry initiative, modelled on Long Bay jail in Sydney, will be funded using $7 million saved during the expansion of the AMC.