Providence, Rhode Island-based United Natural Foods Inc. has named Foga’a Fatupaito its Driver of the Year. The award recognizes select UNFI professional drivers who lead the company in a variety of safety standards.
In addition to being named Driver of the Year, Fatupaito was awarded $10,000 and a premium UNFI tractor that he may use for deliveries during the next year.
“Our drivers are essential to everything UNFI does every day. They are the face of the company and no matter what the weather is or if there is a pandemic, our drivers go the extra mile to keep our customers shelves stocked with the products their customers need,” said Eric Dorne, chief operating officer at UNFI. “Congratulations to Foga’a on being selected our Driver of the Year, and also to our regional winners.”
To determine the Driver of the Year, each of UNFI’s 57 distribution centers perform an analysis of each driver at their locations to determine a Driver of the Month. Criteria include whether the driver has had any preventable accidents, injuries or hours of service violations. Additional metrics include idle time statistics and compliance, safety and accountability (CSA) scores.
Each Driver of the Month is given a $100 gift card and is entered into a regional lottery. During the regional lottery, one driver from each of the four regions is selected to win $10,000. Another lottery is performed for the entire country to determine the Driver of the Year.
In addition to Fatupaito, UNFI also recognized the following regional winners:
- Jay Nolt, Atlantic region;
- Reynato Sans-Souci, South region;
- Steve Gentry, Central region; and
- Michael Gilsdorf, Pacific region.
UNFI is a food wholesaler delivering the widest variety of products to customer locations throughout North America, including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, e-commerce retailers and food service customers. Today, UNFI is the largest publicly traded grocery distributor in the United States.
