Ransom M. Callicott (July 12, 1895 – November 14, 1962)[1] was president of the National Restaurant Association, co-founder of Meals for Millions and a member of the Los Angeles, California, City Council from 1955 until his death.

He was a food consultant to the government in World War II, touring military camps and recommending diets for service personnel.

He was a co-founder with Clinton of Meals for Millions, which packaged and distributed a high-protein product called MPF, or multipurpose food, to fight hunger.

[2] Callicott, then 62, first suffered a heart ailment in April 1959 in Washington, D.C., as he accompanied Mayor Norris Poulson and Councilman James C. Corman in a bid to bring the 1960 Republican National Convention to Los Angeles; he was treated at Georgetown University Hospital.

[6] He died of a heart attack three years later in his home at 353 South Lafayette Park Place on November 14, 1962, leaving three young children, Bryan, Bret and Charles Edward, and a daughter by his first marriage, Mary Rose Brown.

As a commissioner, he urged overhaul of the 1925 city charter,[13][14] which he called a "125,000-word spider web of entangling phrases in which any honest official, once caught, struggles vainly for release.

"[15] Callicott ran for the Los Angeles City Council District 12 seat in 1953, losing to incumbent Councilman Ed J. Davenport in the final by just 443 votes.

He "described himself as a middle-of-the-road political thinker and said that left-wing support which was attracted to his recent campaign for City Council developed only because this element was more antagonistic to Davenport.

Despite protests from Councilwoman Rosalind Wyman and residents of Cheviot Hills, Callicott moved a successful resolution asking that the city-owned Rancho Park Golf Course be explored for oil.

The action earned him the enmity of the Los Angeles Examiner, whose publisher, Franklin S. Payne, sent him a special delivery letter, which arrived at 2 a.m., excoriating him for his vote.