Casket company creating a niche

May 25, 2021/Products/

A Dying Art product as seen on the company website

The big casket companies in America , in a non-Covid year, tell us that they are having their unit sales drop between 1 and 3% annually because of the nationwide increase in cremation percentages. However, in the not so distant future as the country’s high number of Baby Boomers start to pass away the increased death numbers will clash with the increasing cremation percentage numbers and caskets sales, in total volume, may actually increase.

One company in New Zealand doesn’t seem to care about that mathematical equation as it is increasingly building and selling caskets for both earth burial and cremation. Dying Art Creative Departures is the creation of signage and graphic businessman Phil Hall and is located in Auckland, New Zealand. Since 2003, as this Associated Press article tells it, Hall’s creative caskets (or coffins) has led to increasing business in New Zealand. The caskets, many made to order, sometimes lighten the mood at services.

Says Hall, according to the article, “There are people who are happy with a brown mahogany box and that’s great. But if they want to shout it out, I’m here to do it for them.”

Hall says funerals have changed in the past decade and his made to order units include those that look like a firetruck, a chocolate bar, Lego blocks, and even a sailboat. Again, according to the article, Hall says the change in funeral customs over the recent years has led to a market for his units. He states in the article, “People now think it’s a celebration of life rather than a mourning of death.”

The caskets are made out of fiberboard and plywood and a latex digital printer is used for the designs. They are biodegradable and can be used for either earth burial or cremation.

Dying Art Caskets are sold exclusively through funeral homes and retail for between US$ 2,100 and US$ 5,400.

Here is the web-site for Dying Art Creative Departures

EXTRA EDITION: Today, I’m going to add a 2nd story for the readers of Funeral Director Daily. I have a habit of scanning the Minneapolis Star Tribune obituaries everyday and picking one lengthy obit out to read. I’m usually impressed by the life that was lived and it has given me a great sense of the varieties of life that are meaningful in American society.

Today, in my death care inbox I received an article from the Sun Newspapers of New York. The article was a written life history pertaining to Mr. Maynard Baker, who has recently died. Mr. Baker lived an interesting life, including owning and operating a funeral home and vault company. I just thought you might enjoy this article also.

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