Funeral Director Daily

Batesville casket sales, margins both drop

By Funeral Director Daily / February 8, 2022 /

  Hillenbrand Industries, parent company of Batesville Casket, reported their Fiscal Year 2022 1st Quarter last week. The First Quarter of their fiscal year represents the months of October, November, and December 2021.  You can read the entire report on the company’s 1Q 2022 here. While Hillenbrand Industries is a conglomerate of companies, they still…

New Hampshire “Sustainable Funeral” group working to change state’s embalming law

By Funeral Director Daily / February 7, 2022 /

If you follow the trends in death care you will notice that not only increased cremation continues to happen, but so does interest in alkaline hydrolysis, recomposition, and other “green burial” practices.  According to this article, in New Hampshire 18-year old Anya Nicoll and state legislator Jerry Knirk are working towards changing a 1971 state…

The Arrangement and Preneed Conferences

By Funeral Director Daily / February 4, 2022 /

I’ve been out of active funeral directing for the past eight years.  And, I won’t apologize for it, but I’m a traditionalist when it comes to funeral service.  That means I still believe in the value of the public acknowledgement of death, the tradition of a service or celebration of life, and the idea of…

Cremation provider launched consumer “Pay what you Want” price for January

By Funeral Director Daily / February 3, 2022 /

How would your funeral home come out in terms of profitability if you advertised a pricing method billed as “Pay what you want”?  Now, Caledonia Cremation is not your normal “Mom and Pop” funeral/cremation shop, but their January promotion is unique. Here’s what they say on their promotional website which you can access here: “Everyone…

Seventy-Five years since the Capone burial

By Funeral Director Daily / February 2, 2022 /

I recently finished Bill O’Reilly’s book “Killing the Mob”.  It is one of about a dozen books in a series by O’Reilly all with the “Killing” titles. I’ve learned that “Killing” is just the title series and the books are really about the history of people, movements, and time periods. Of the books I’ve read…

Matthews 1Q 2022: Memorialization segment has higher sales, lower EBITDA

By Funeral Director Daily / February 1, 2022 /

Matthews International, the parent company of Aurora Caskets and Matthews Cremation products reported their 1st Quarter 2022 financial results last week.  It should be noted that Matthews fiscal year begins in October so these results are for the October thru December 2021 period. Of interest to us at Funeral Director Daily are the results of…

A contemporary funeral home for Urban life

By Funeral Director Daily / January 31, 2022 /

It’s been called a “hipster” funeral home.  That’s at least what one person labeled Brooklyn, New York’s new contemporary funeral home, Sparrow.  Erica Hill, a co-owner of Sparrow says this of comments like that, “Yes, we look different than what you expect a funeral home to be, but that’s okay.” According to this article in…

The next British invasion

By Funeral Director Daily / January 28, 2022 /

Americans have been influenced by the Brits for centuries.  In the pre-Revolutionary day the colonists enjoyed the tea imported from the East India Tea Company of England until John Hancock’s merchant shop found a way to circumvent the tax on such by buying tea from a Dutch company.  Those purchases led to the Boston Tea…

Security National Financial makes two January acquisitions

By Funeral Director Daily / January 27, 2022 /

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFC), parent company of Utah-based Memorial Mortuaries announced in two separate press releases the acquisition of two funeral service companies, one of which also operates a large cemetery in addition to their four funeral locations. In this press release you can read of the acquisition of Salt Lake City provider Holbrook…

How do you collect cash and control receivables

By Funeral Director Daily / January 26, 2022 /

I came across this article entitled “Lending USA introduces FastScreen, a New Tool for Pre-Loan Qualification for Funeral Home Merchants” and it reminded me of the struggles I had over the years about implementation of tougher credit policies on client families.  The age old “push-pull” credit decision is that you don’t want to make it…