Tom McDougall
Founder and CEO of 4P Foods, a Mid-Atlantic public-benefit food hub founded in 2014 that connects regional farmers and producers with customers including schools, hospitals, restaurants, and Food-is-Medicine partners. He advocates for equitable, regenerative, and decentralized food systems.
4P Foods Replaces Fragile Supply Chains With Regional Food Hubs
Tom McDougall, founder of 4P Foods, argues that regional food hubs can give farmers a larger share of customer spending while making local sourcing workable for schools, retailers and other large buyers. He presents the model as an alternative to a concentrated food system that he says has made supply chains brittle and consolidated wealth and power. McDougall’s broader case is that leaders must both improve the institutions people still depend on and build replacement systems organized around fairness, respect and resilience.
Purpose-Driven Leadership Begins Before Strategy Is Clear
At the Resnick Aspen Action Forum, 2026 McNulty Prize winners Anna Novosad, Rudy Espinoza and Tom McDougall argued that purpose-driven leadership begins before certainty, funding or a finished strategy is in place. Novosad described building savED from an initial effort to assess damaged schools in Ukraine; Espinoza framed advocacy as a decision to take a side alongside people excluded from capital; and McDougall called for confronting the environmental and human costs omitted from market prices. Their shared case was that sustaining such commitments requires care for one’s own capacity and collaboration with others—not faith that a rescuer will arrive.
Regional Food Hubs Aim to Replace Fragile Supply Chains
Tom McDougall, founder of 4P Foods, argues that a food system built around concentrated production and long supply chains is efficient but fragile—and leaves farmers with too little of the value their food creates. His Mid-Atlantic food hub aggregates products from several hundred farms for schools, hospitals and other large buyers, reducing intermediaries and, he says, raising farmers’ average share of each customer dollar from 11 cents to 66 cents. McDougall’s broader case is for regional “supply webs” that strengthen existing procurement while building a less concentrated food system.