The weather is gold in Columbus. Also, it’s Friday.

It’s spring and the sun’s out, temps are lower 80s, the kind of sunny day central Ohioans wait months to enjoy. Jack Swartley and Sky Sie are Ohio State sophomores with no classes on the schedule; they could literally be anywhere doing anything.

So they’re at DNO Produce in Columbus loading DoorDash cars with boxes of fruits and vegetables to be delivered to the doorsteps of customers and families in need. The work isn’t glamorous, but for Jack and Sky, it’s the heartbeat of their startup, MobilePantry, a venture built to address two massive problems: food waste and food insecurity.

“My north star has always been helping others,” Swartley says. “It’s my favorite thing in the world.”

MobilePantry launched its current model this spring after winning $50,000 through the President’s Buckeye Accelerator in April 2025. The team is building it as a self‑sustaining nonprofit with a simple but powerful system: they purchase cosmetically imperfect produce that grocery stores won’t sell, offer it to subscribers at 30% below retail, and use that revenue to fund free doorstep deliveries for families in need.

The scale of the problem they’re fighting is staggering. In Franklin County alone, about one million pounds of edible food is thrown away daily, while almost 150,000 residents are food insecure, according to Local Matters, a Columbus nonprofit. And for many who rely on food pantries, transportation is a barrier, with an estimated 40% struggling to get there at all.

Jack and Sky, both finance majors deeply involved in Ohio State’s entrepreneurship ecosystem through the Keenan Center, didn’t start MobilePantry only because they wanted to build a business, but also because they’ve seen the struggle close up.

Sky began volunteering at food pantries in high school after seeing first-hand how expensive fresh produce was when he began eating healthier.

“Food and nutrition have been hugely impactful to me,” he says. “But seeing the receipt you can rack up, it’s not accessible for a lot of people, even myself. So I started thinking about ways to make healthy food more accessible.”

Jack’s story goes back even further. Growing up outside Philadelphia, he and his mom volunteered at local pantries and helped with food donations from churches.

When he arrived at Ohio State and found his passion for entrepreneurship, Jack never forgot the faces and stories he encountered as a volunteer. He saw building a business as a way to solve a problem he cared deeply about.

“I remember one woman with two kids who walked three miles to get to our pantry every week,” he says. “Another man picked up for six families. Those stories really got me thinking about what we could do.”

He also saw the stigma that often surrounds food pantries, something MobilePantry’s delivery model helps eliminate through its DoorDash partnership.

Yolanda Owens, executive director at Local Matters and a mentor to the MobilePantry team, believes that dignity is transformative.

“Transportation is a huge piece of the puzzle,” she says. “To put food on folks’ doorsteps, that’s one less thing they have to worry about. They’re not limited by what they can carry or by lugging kids around to multiple bus stops. It’s important when we think about food access.”

Owens, a graduate of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences with nearly two decades of experience in food access and nonprofit programming, says what sets the MobilePantry model apart is the blend of mission and entrepreneurship.

“It’s interesting to see someone come from a business mindset and make this viable,” she says. “It’s a different approach, the practicality of it. And they have tremendous excitement and zeal for this work.”

Nick Middleton, the Vice President of Supply Chain at DNO Produce, echoes those sentiments.

DNO — a major Midwest distributor that supplies the packed produce boxes for MobilePantry — has long prioritized sustainability, according to Middleton, donating produce to food banks and even animal sanctuaries to keep it out of landfills. When Jack and Sky emailed him out of the blue, Middleton didn’t hesitate.

“It was a no‑brainer,” he says. “Food waste is a massive problem, and food rescue is fundamental to what we do. Our missions are aligned. It’s worked seamlessly so far, and we want to be a partner for their growth.”

Growth is very much on Jack and Sky’s minds. They’re still early in their journey, but they believe they’ve built a model that can scale, first across Ohio, then potentially beyond. Cities like Cleveland and Cincinnati are already on their radar.

“I really love what we’re doing, this opportunity to help others through entrepreneurship,” Jack said. “Everything we’ve been able to do comes back to Ohio State and the Keenan Center. It’s been incredible, just incredible.”