In an interview with Charlie Rose, Thomas Friedman said that UPS delivers Papa John’s pizza. Is this true?
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: No, UPS didn’t buy a fleet of ’85 Dodge Omnis, paint them brown, and stick Papa John’s signs on their roofs.
Friedman actually said “You see the Papa John’s Pizza truck go by, Charlie? Don’t look who’s driving! It’s UPS.” Note that Friedman, who was just speaking off-the-cuff in an interview, said “truck” (and not “car” or “delivery truck”). He didn’t mention anything about the process of delivering finished pizzas. He’s talking about the tractor-trailor rigs emblazoned with Papa John advertising on the side that bring supplies from warehouses to the local outlets.
In a 2002 story in the Cincinnati business journal *Business Courier* (available through databases that the library subscribes to, such as ABI/Inform), it says, “Since 1996, United Parcel Service Inc.’s logistics division has managed routing, scheduling and delivery from eight Papa John’s Food Service Quality Control Centers [i.e., warehouses] to more than 2,000 restaurants [i.e., where they cook the pizza] twice a week. … 270 UPS Logistics drivers use 96 tractors and 130 trailers, marked with Papa John’s insignia, to deliver goods from the pizza company’s quality-control centers.”