Cremation
I’ve watched the growth of direct cremation provider and preneed cremation business Pure Cremation from a start-up to, in my opinion, the most profitable investment in Death Care over the past decade. According to the Sun Life “Cost of Dying Report” in Great Britain, direct cremation has grown from a 2-3% market share in…
One of the positive things of living during the winter months in a Florida golf community is that I get to meet and play golf with lots of new people with greatly differing backgrounds from my own. Just last Friday I got paired up with two new friends — one a retired police…
According to this recent article in Newsweek “The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded more than $77 million in new grants aimed at expanding and improving state-operated Veterans cemeteries. The funding, announced by the VA in December, supports projects at 20 existing state Veterans cemeteries and includes an establishment grant for Alaska’s…
Washington State cremation owners and operators find themselves in somewhat of a Catch-22 when it comes to new cremation equipment. According to this article from the Seattle Times Pacific Northwest Magazine old cremation machines have been grandfathered in but operate less efficiently as compared to the new cremation machines available. However, because of…
American monument dealers have become accustomed to dealing with the rising cremation rates in the country and the dwindling sales opportunities for cemetery monuments that fact brings. But now, according to this recent article from CNBC titled “An industry focused on death faces an existential crisis”, family-owned monument dealers have seen United States…
I grew up in the very homogeneous community of Alexandria, Minnesota. From this Wikipedia article you can see that the city at the time of my growing up had a population of a little over 6,000. Today, according to the same Wikipedia article the community’s “metropolitan area” – those that live, work, and/or attend…
Alex Fasciano, an analyst for CFRA Research suggests that quick service restaurant player KFC’s (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken) strategy is “. .centered on driving growth through brand relevance, marketing innovation, (and) operational excellence. . . .” It turns out that the iconic brand was losing customer count and sales to other competitors in…
Funeral Director Daily learned last week that one of the best known names in Death Care was branching out to continue to help funeral directors. The Czachor family, founders of the leading funeral home answering service, ASD, has announced the formation of a company to help funeral homes coordinate meaningful aerial cremation ash scatterings.…
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…
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…
