COBA International

COBA started out in 1966 as COBA Plastics Ltd, founded by Tony Cooke and Tom Bateman, running out of premises in central England and manufacturing plastic extrusions. That extrusion business grew steadily on its own, and it’s still a world-class manufacturer of thermoplastic extrusions today, using state-of-the-art design and manufacturing processes.

The matting side of the business, which is what COBA’s best known for now, actually came out of that extrusion work almost by accident. Back in 1979, the company began manufacturing COBAmat safety matting as an alternative to wooden duck-boarding, and COBA became one of the first companies to introduce the whole idea of industrial safety matting into the UK. Not long after, the company discovered PVC foam-based materials, which led to the Orthomat anti-fatigue matting range, still expanding today. In 1999, COBA launched its first entrance matting and floor tile collection, the forerunner of what’s now the COBA Flooring division, and picked up ISO 14001 certification the same year.

That same year, the business also restructured, with COBA formed specifically to concentrate on matting and flooring sales rather than everything the wider group did. Expansion continued from there, including into Africa. COBA Plastics (Pty) Ltd acquired Rubaloy, a Cape Town-based recycled rubber flooring manufacturer, in 2014, followed by the acquisition of Matco, a long-established Johannesburg matting and flooring business, in 2015.

Today, COBA is privately funded, headquartered in the UK with its base in Rugby, and split into two main divisions, COBA Europe and COBA Plastics, under the wider COBA International group. It’s recognized as one of Europe’s largest and most established floor matting suppliers, offering everything from workplace safety matting and anti-fatigue mats to entrance systems, safety knives, rubber sheeting, and cable protectors. In 2016, the company marked its 50th anniversary, celebrating a history that started with a single workplace safety matting product and grew, almost by accident, out of a plastics extrusion business that had nothing to do with flooring at all.