Buckeye student entrepreneurs seek to expand Mobile Pantry to help tackle food insecurity in Columbus

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Thu, 19 Feb 2026 03:57:22 +0000
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Mobile Pantry, founded by Jack Swartley and Sky Sie, two second-years in finance, delivers leftover produce to local food banks. Credit: Courtesy of Jack Swartley

Food insecurity is an issue that many nonprofits and professionals are attempting to solve, but in the meantime, a pair of Ohio State students decided to take initiative in helping feed the Central Ohio community.?

Jack Swartley, executive director of Mobile Pantry and a second-year in finance, said the organization launched last May in hopes of reducing food waste.

“Mobile Pantry is a rapid, tech-enabled food rescue nonprofit that was founded in May 2025,” Swartley said. “Our differentiator here is we help pick up and rescue food from grocery stores, retailers, farms and produce markets before it goes to waste.”

Swartley said he launched Mobile Pantry with Sky Sie, also a second-year in finance. Swartley said the company was able to launch after receiving a grant for entrepreneurs at Ohio State.?

“The organization started when I was going through President’s Buckeye Accelerator, which is one of the entrepreneurial programs at Ohio State,” Swartley said. “They picked six winners every year to win a $50,000 non-dilutive grant and mentorship from Ohio State. We were lucky enough to be one of the winners this past year, and so far, we’ve been able to rescue just a little over 1,000 pounds of food.”

The pair is not fully satisfied with what they have done so far, as Sie said Mobile Pantry is working towards also hosting local pop-up shops.

“Another way that we can provide food to food-insecure [people] is weekend pop-ups,” Sie said. “The whole mission of the weekend pop-ups will be something that will allow us to get a firsthand insight to food insecure individuals and be able to talk directly with them.”

Swartley said that he wants to make it easier for people to donate food to Mobile Pantry, so the business is slated to launch an app in the near future.

“We’re refining our web-based app that’s going to make it much easier for a lot of our donor partners,” Swartley said. “These are the grocery stores and retailers, and we want to make it easier for them to donate. So we got a lot of feedback on that, a lot of mentorship, and that’s hopefully launching soon in March — from there, we’ll be able to hit the ground running.”

Swartley said his childhood experiences of donating to food pantries, as well as his personal interests, helped point him towards co-founding Mobile Pantry.

“I got started in this space back in seventh grade.I just started going with my mom to drop off a lot of food to the food pantry from our local church,” Swartley said. “When I came to Ohio State, I actually didn’t even know I was going to go into entrepreneurship … I thought for sure in high school that I would be somewhere in government or politics, or doing some sort of service work. I was able to mesh those two passions together into Mobile Pantry.”

Sie said his passion and involvement in Mobile Pantry stemmed from an expensive trip to a grocery store, which sparked a realization that others may not have easy access to fresh produce.

“I remember one day shopping, I was cashing out and then the bill was huge,” Sie said. “That’s when I realized that I was investing so much time on my food and nutrition, but the only reason I was able to do so was because of the money from my parents. I went forward in a direction and had this passion of how I could get other people to have the same accessibility.”

Sie said there is not only a problem with food insecurity itself, but specifically with getting quality food to lower-income areas, which is why Mobile Pantry focuses on delivering fresh produce.

“A majority of the food delivered will be fresh produce,” Sie said. “Healthy food is what we emphasize. On the supply side, grocery stores, restaurants and even produce distributors actually have a ton of wasted produce on hand. The most important thing that we’re working on right now is: How can we keep that produce fresh from picking it up to delivering it to the food pantry?”

Sie said he has learned the valuable lesson of having his passion carry him through the stress of being a college student and entrepreneur.

“This project that I’m working on is what I’m really passionate about,” Sie said. “Sometimes I do forget that during the really busy days, but my passion drives me and that’s what I’ve learned. If you really want to go at something and be successful at it, I think you really do have to enjoy it and thankfully, Mobile Pantry is enjoyable for me.”