About Fiber Roofing

FIBER ROOFING CC

ESTABLISHED IN 1976

WITH OUR LONG-STANDING HISTORY IN THE MARKET, FIBER ROOFING HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MOST RESPECTED THATCH ROOFING SUPPLIERS IN THE WORLD; FOCUSED ON ENSURING THE RIGHT SOLUTION FOR OUR AGENTS.

OVER THE PAST 42 YEARS, FIBER ROOFING CC HAS ENDEAVOURED TO ANSWER THE NEEDS OF INDUSTRY AND HAS GONE FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH AND HAS SHOWN CONSISTENT GROWTH.

Our working directors / shareholders have a combined knowledge and expertise in the thatching manufacturing field comprising 150 years. The property and factories from which the business operates is owned by Fiber Roofing cc. The permanent staff compliment consists of 89 employees which consist of: Directors, project engineers, technicians, buyers, general office staff, , carpenters, welders, fitters, drivers, labourers, etc…

Fiber Roofing cc (originally known as Redruth Thatching) was founded by Jan and Miriam Grobler in 1976.

By the early 1990s, Jan and Miriam had already grown this thatching company from a small company to a workforce of nearly 200 employees and 1,000 thatch harvesters, constructing over 50,000m² of thatch roofed areas per year. In management we have more than 150 years of thatch roof experience!

The best Manufacturer and Exporter you will meet.

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INTERNATIONAL THATCHING DIVISION

In 1984 The Company decided to expand globally. With the help of our now-CEO, Danie Vorster (yes, he’s been with the company for a loooooong time), products like our D.I.Y. thatch umbrellas, gazebos in kit form, thatch kiosk, Cape Reed ceiling boards, a range of rustic fences, log paving, thatch grass, Cape reed and Tanalith – treated rustic timber poles were developed and marketed.

Our standard Cape reed tiles developed and evolved into new product lines such as “Custom” or “Grated’ Cape reed tiles “Large” Cape reed tiles, “Tropical” Cape reed tiles and “Combination” Cape reed tiles (which we patented).

OUR PEOPLE – OUR FAMILY

If you’ve looked through our website, you’ve probably come to realize that we’re very proud of our company’s history and how much we’ve grown in the last four decades. We started out as a small business, with just a few employees, and we grew steadily over the years by focusing on the right things; quality, customer care, and fair employment practices. This is something very near and dear to our hearts, because we had many opportunities to grow in the wrong ways, but chose not to.

We could have brought on outside investors, but that could have undermined quality, so we funded operations from our own account. We could have focused on cutting costs and bringing cheap products to the market, but that would have hurt our customers. We could have paid our employees rock bottom salaries, but that would destroy morale. These were all strategies doomed to failure, and strategies we avoided with great effort because our view is that a business is all about creating value and thinking up new ways of making people’s lives better. Whether it’s our customers, our agents, or our employees – at the end of the day, our job is to fulfill the needs of ALL our stakeholders.

When Jan and Miriam Grobler founded the company in 1976, South Africa was under Apartheid rule. It was a difficult time for our country, a time fraught with economic instability and violence that hurt many families. Unfortunately, this economic instability reverberated for many years. To this day, South Africa is dealing with much economic uncertainty; with 1 in 4 citizens unemployed, and many challenges for families who are just trying to survive and hang on to hope for a brighter future.

Though there are many contentious political issues in South Africa, we don’t pretend to understand all the issues faced by the country, and we don’t focus on the politics. We’re not politicians – we make roofs and gazebos. So instead, we focus on our employees and finding ways to make their lives better, to give them stability, and a way to support their families in these tough economic times.


It’s not just because we want to be nice, but because treating people with respect, and giving them opportunities to earn a good living is what helps us build our company’s family culture. Our employees care more about their work because they are valued members of our team – not just names on paper. And everybody wins at the end: clients, because our factory staff put their heart and soul into their work; our employees, because they don’t have to worry so much about how to make ends meet; and us, because we can focus on innovation, rather than dealing with unhappy customers or staff.

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This balanced approach that focuses on ALL stakeholders of our company is what helped us build Fiber Roofing into the company that it is today. In a country where nearly 20 million people are unemployed, our operations help over 1,000 to survive, literally. This is why we don’t outsource and why we work so hard to avoid mistakes: there are many, many people who depend on our company running smoothly.

And yes, it’s easy to become cynical in difficult times. 1,000 families is just a drop in the bucket compared to 20 million unemployed, but cynicism is a defense mechanism that never leads to real solutions – and that’s something we don’t accept. Our goal is to take care of our clients, but to make sure that our employees are taken care of as well. It is the business model of the 21st Century, and we intend to grow it by leaps and bounds in the coming years.

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FIBER ROOFING’S STATE OF THE ART THATCH FACTORY

More than 20 years ago Fiber Roofing invested in buying land and building a purpose made state of the art factory. We planted roots and if only because of our capital investment will be around in many years to come. We invested in generating and supplying our own electricity, something very important in South Africa. We have on site accommodation for key personnel and have our own catering facility to supply food to our personnel. A display area at the factory is used to demonstrate our products and to train agents and developers.


Our factory is located next to the R59 Freeway used to either deliver containers to the inland port of Kazerne in Johannesburg, or on the route to Durban and/or Cape Town. Although we only utilize 5 acres of the industrial land we owe we have another 17 acres of land at our disposal to expand. We are near enough to an area with an unlimited supply of labour residing to employ if and when needed.


When we talk about our factory we have to confer to our staff. Our relations with our staff are excellent. We have no Union in our company, something almost unheard of in South Africa. The workers see Jan Grobler, our Managing Director, as a father/uncle and have many tines shown their loyalty and support in working almost inhuman long hours to meet deadlines when required. The fact that we have not had a resignation in the last 5 years proves this further.

By looking after our staff we retain their expertize. They only get better and better! (No wonder Jan Grobler was so pleased and thrilled when his children, after running a successful thatch roof agency for 10 years in Australia, agreed to return to South Africa and take over the reins of the factory).


The strength and loyalty of our workforce is what sets Fiber roofing apart from all the other thatching companies in South Africa and his children, realizing this, will look after this unique factory and its workers the way that Jan had done for almost 40 years. This factory and staff provide the best quality thatched roof products available in South Africa. We continuously invest time and resources to conduct research, test various chemical treatments and assembly components and to put our products through rigorous wear-and-tear experiments. We’ve also perfected many of our manufacturing processes and time-tables over the years ensuring on time delivery with enough quality control points to ensure a quality product.


Quality is another reason why we do all our work in-house. We prepare the raw materials, extrude, process, assemble, manufacture and package all of our products at the same facility. This doesn’t just give us the ability to maintain the highest quality, but allows us to meet deadlines on urgent shipments – we don’t rely on middlemen and we don’t outsource our process.

In fact:

WE HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO PRODUCE BETWEEN 500 AND 700 SQUARE METERS OF THATCHED ROOFING MATERIALS PER DAY…


Because of our management staff staying on site we often over weekends experiment and develop new exciting products. You will often find the management team at the factory on the weekends with our R&D team using our factory as an experimental lab. We have a great deal of fun creating new concepts and taking on custom projects that challenge our team to find creative solutions for our clients. After all, if it wasn’t fun, we wouldn’t have spent the last four decades building this company!

At our facilities you will also find an extensive display area dedicated to training and teaching our agents and distributors during their visits to our factory. They get to see how all of our products are manufactured, and more importantly, they get to see what makes our products better. We often invite resort owners, contractors, architects, quantity surveyors and agents to visit our factory. Together we will develop and try new concepts and teach and show to them new methods and ideas gleaned from other agents.

Again we need to mention our “family of employees”. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Our Company would be nothing without our team. Most of our products are made by hand because automated or machined processes will simply not provide the same type of quality. We work with natural materials which come in different sizes and different dimensions which require an experienced professional to carefully shape them through the various aspects of the manufacturing process to provide that perfect end product.

Contact us today

for a free quote, or to BECOME A DISTRIBUTOR

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