From a shared bicycle and ₹300 a month to machines only Germany can match: the story of Hareshbhai Patoriya

The household income was ₹1,500 a month. Rent took ₹1,200, leaving ₹300 to run the home. Two brothers shared one bicycle, and Hareshbhai often walked to work. Today he runs ICON Industries, a busy factory on Rajkot’s Gondal Road that makes about 40 food packaging machines a month and aims for ₹150 crore in turnover.
Born on 1 September 1973, Hareshbhai grew up in Thoriyali village, the son of a hardworking farmer whose land suffered in drought years. After Class 7 he came to Rajkot to study, then studied engineering in Sangli, Maharashtra. He promised his father: “I may struggle now, but in the future I will give jobs to others.”
After a year of studying what business to start, he founded ICON in Rajkot in 2007, carrying a debt of ₹3,200. He worked day and night and built every machine around what customers needed, never compromising on quality.
ICON now designs and develops 59 types of food packaging machines in-house, many of them firsts for India. Its thermo forming vacuum packing machine is made only by ICON in India, and apart from Germany, nobody else in the world makes it. Hareshbhai built it after three years of research, without any hi-fi technology, and sold 23 in 11 months.
ICON’s machines cost more, yet they sell. Chinese machines at half the price haven’t stopped ICON’s sales, and German rivals have had to cut their prices. ICON has no dealers and does no marketing: customers deal directly with the maker, and happy customers spread the word. Service centres run in Mumbai, Bangalore and Africa, with Dubai coming soon.
His formula for business is research, quality, hard work, service and patience. He also chooses not to make papad-khakhra making machines, because thousands of women earn a living from that trade.
Behind him stands his wife, Niruben, who prayed every day to Shri Khodiyar Mata to make his hard work successful. For Hareshbhai, family is the foundation and the customer is God. Once he rushed back from Mount Abu just to repair a customer’s machine.
Today he researches until 8:30 every evening, eats simple food and lives in a modest one-BHK home. His next goal is a full packing line that runs without people, which he hopes to finish within a year.
ICON is not only Hareshbhai’s industry. Hareshbhai Patoriya himself is ICON.