At age 17, most young people are still figuring out what they want to become. Manoj Lakhiani had already made a decision that would shape the rest of his life, he was leaving school to build a business.

Manoj borrowed $25,000 from his father and used the money to buy a second-hand plastic extrusion machine in Accra. It was a modest beginning for a man who would eventually build one of Ghana’s most recognisable privately owned manufacturing groups.

There was no sprawling factory empire at the start. Just a machine, borrowed money and a willingness to take a risk.

Today, Lakhiani is chairman of the Blow Group of Companies, a manufacturing business whose products reach into the everyday lives of millions of consumers Ghana.

Blow group has built a presence across several parts of Ghana’s consumer economy, from plastic packaging used by businesses to the bottled water people carry to work, school and home.

However the story of Blow Group is not simply about making plastics. It is about recognising an opportunity, overcoming setbacks and finding new ways to grow.

The business that started it all

Lakhiani’s story goes back to 1994, when his father, Jagdish Lakhiani, an Accra-based import merchant, acquired a struggling manufacturer of plastic gallons. The business became Blow Plast Industries.

The business started with the production of everyday products, including carrier bags, sacks and film used in sachet-water packaging. These were not glamorous products, but they served a market with consistent demand.

Blow Plastic Industries over time, expanded its manufacturing capabilities, moving into products such as PET bottle preforms used in beverage packaging.

Then came a setback that would change the direction of the group.

Blow Plast reportedly in 2010 lost a major beverage customer. Rather than relying entirely on supplying packaging to other companies, the business moved into beverages itself.

Blow Plast, in October 2011, launched Bel Aqua.

Instead of making only a component used by other beverage companies, Blow Group was entering the market with a consumer brand of its own.

According to Blow Group, Bel Aqua became a market leader within five years of it launch. Sagaci Research in August 2026 identified it as Ghana’s most-scanned bottled-water brand under its consumer research methodology.

The lesson is not that every setback creates an opportunity. It is that a setback can force a business to reconsider where it sits in the value chain.

From plastics to a wider manufacturing business

Bel Aqua was only part of the expansion story Blow Group.

The company subsequently diversified it’s business portfolios venturing into soft drinks, including Bel Cola, and a low-alcohol cider. It also expanded into tissue paper through Belpak, whose mill was launched in Tema in 2023.

Blow group’s portfolio now comprises  plastics, packaging, bottled water, beverages and tissue paper.

Moreover it also explored the noodle business through its Yum-mie brand before selling the business to Dufil Prima Foods, the company behind Indomie, in 2020.

These crucial moves by the group illustrate a business strategy built around manufacturing, consumer demand and the ability to develop products beyond the company’s original market.

According to Blow Group, its five manufacturing businesses have an employment capacity of about 4,000 people. Its privately held structure, however, means detailed financial statements and independently verified figures for revenue, profit and market share are not readily available publicly.

That makes the scale of Lakhiani’s personal wealth difficult to measure. Hence, the range of businesses associated with the group offers a clearer picture of the industrial footprint he has helped build.

The bigger story behind Manoj Lakhiani

There is something instructive about the path from a second-hand machine to a diversified manufacturing group.

Lakhiani’s story is not simply about leaving school young or borrowing money from his father. The story is about what happened after the initial decision: building manufacturing capacity, serving everyday consumer needs, moving into new product categories and responding to setbacks by changing the business model.

It also highlights a part of entrepreneurship that often receives less attention than technology start-ups and billion-dollar valuations, the long, demanding work of building factories, managing production, maintaining quality and getting physical products into people’s hands.

Manoj Lakhiani started with borrowed money and a machine at 17. Decades later, the business story is no longer about the machine itself. It is about the manufacturing platform built around it and the challenge of sustaining that business for the next generation.

The Fighispost takeaway: Building an empire is rarely one big decision. More often, it is a series of decisions about what to make, where to compete and when to change direction.