Cremation
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…
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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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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