Cremation
The election of Democrat Socialist Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of the city that many refer to as the “World’s Financial Center” has brought about questions on what might change. Most of those questions deal with financial issues such as taxes and benefits. From the perspective of Death Care and funerals my thought process…
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Service Corporation International Chairman and CEO Thomas Ryan made some interesting comments in his opening statements in last week’s SCI Earnings Call. And, I wonder when looking at the long-range perspective if these comments portend an increasingly successful future for cemeteries and less of that future for traditional funeral homes. Here’s some of…
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With the NFDA convention going on in Chicago I thought that I would give attendees something to talk about while exploring the Expo floor. It was only a couple of weeks ago that Funeral Director Daily let you know in this article that Great Britain direct cremation provider Pure Cremation was being put…
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As things seem to do in my life, circumstances came together this week to have me reflect on changes in the Death Care profession/industry. First of all, here’s three items that came together to make me think about changes in our businesses. I attended the funeral of a long-time member of my…
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I learned through an article from Sky News and in this article from KillBait that Epiris, the private equity firm that acquired London area-based Direct Cremation provider Pure Cremation just over two years ago, is beginning a process to sell the company. Pure Cremation, arguably the most financially successful start-up in Death Care…
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The question posed in the headline is interesting. What is happening in Great Britain may be a precursor of what could happen in North America about the billing amount to consumers for the growing trend of Direct Cremations. A recent 2025 survey of 200 funeral directors and 6,000 adults showed that Direct Cremations…
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Minnesota funeral director Scott Mueller is a proponent of “Green Burials”. Mueller makes a comment in this recent article from the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin titled “As interest in green burials grows, so does some opposition”. Mueller’s comment is this, “As long as people have walked this earth, we’ve had green burials. Every cemetery…
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There are some interesting survey results out that question if the United States will soon reach the “Peak Percentage” of cremation rates as the disposition of choice. Last year at this time the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) was readying some of their results on the “Changing Funeral Preferences” survey. I remember…
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On Tuesday morning I had to alter my running schedule because of rain showers. So, I took to our indoor treadmill to get my daily exercise and had a nice run while watching the Fox Business Stuart Varney morning show. One of the short business news stories that came on was that they…
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Pension funds and endowments have the responsibility of shepherding for safety, growth, and income their assets into a multitude of investments. I’ve learned that most of those types of investors invest in bonds and private debt for income and stocks for short-term growth. Some will invest up to 5% of the assets into…
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