Every year the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) publishes their Cremation and Burial Report.  This year’s much anticipated copy was released on July 6, 2017.  It is an interesting document filled with statistics, research, and dialogue that should be a must read for every person in the Death Care industry.  You can read it here.

The 2017 report, as I said is very interesting.  One thing that it points out is that, in keeping with the growing trend towards cremation, the United States is anticipated to grow the percentage of people cremated from a 50.2% number in 2016 to a projected 78.8% rate in 2035.  The report indicates that a number of factors contribute to this phenomena such as cost, environmental concerns, a growing transient population, and just the idea of simpler services among other factors.

Here are some other interesting findings of the report:

• The number of deaths in the U. S. is expected to rise from 2.8 million in 2017 to 3.5 million in 2035
• The number of casketed burials will actually decrease – as cremation percentage increases – from about 1.2 million in 2017 to a projected 541,000 in 2035.  That is a decline in the number of casketed burials of a whopping 59%.
• The primary reason for choosing direct cremation is the perceived cost effectiveness of this type of choice.
• Funeral home revenues will be very stagnant as cremation numbers increase.  Price increases will be difficult.
• Funeral homes will likely offer more products and services associated with cremation.
• Funeral home revenues received from resale of merchandise and planning services has decreased over the past five years.
• Because the number of deaths will increase, funeral homes, even though doing less casketed services, will probably not be able to cut back on staff which will limit their ability to save on expenses.
• e-commerce is projected to grow and may become a threat to funeral home sales of urns and other cremation related items.
• Of those who have had a cremation for a loved one in the past, 59% indicate that they had a permanent memorial of some type – this is down from 67% in the 2010 survey.

Funeral Director Daily take:  Taking in this report can be a sobering experience for those of us in the funeral industry.  While every client and client family is unique and we have to treat them so and honor their wishes, this report reflects on what consumers are thinking at this time and it seems to be saying that cremation will be the future of the death care industry.  To look at it any other way would not be honest.

So the question is, what do you do with your funeral home to be profitable in the future.  In my opinion, a profitable funeral home begins with increasing market share in your fixed cost environment.  It also begins with planning your budgets to reflect the growing number of cremations – and in many cases – direct cremations that you are going to have.  We’ve done columns on how you can prosper in a rising cremation environment and it begins with proper pricing and raising your margins.

Finally, someone in your community is going to be providing the death care to the families – that care is not going to be done by robots.  You just need to make sure that the community knows that you provide the services at a great value with a caring attitude.  I’m a very firm believer that if you can get the calls – you can make them profitable.[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]