Death of the Traditional Funeral

Caskets had a good run. Now, the National Funeral Directors Association is projecting cremations will surpass traditional burial plans by 2025.

The percentage of cremations in the U.S. was 42 percent in 2011, according to the Cremation Association of North America. That’s up from 35 percent in 2007.

“In today’s market, people are shopping,” said Shelley Blackwell, whose family last month opened Midwest Cremation and Funeral Services LLC targeting the no-frills cremations niche.

Blackwell’s daughter, Missy, the majority owner of the startup, said cost is the key factor driving the trend.

The national median cost of a funeral in 2012 was $7,045, according to the NFDA. Cremation rates quoted to Springfield Business Journal ranged between $850 and $2,500.

“We are trying to keep our overhead low because people want to maximize their dollars,” said Missy Blackwell, who most recently worked at Walnut Lawn Funeral Home with her father, Ron, a 50-year embalmer.

But the trend is nothing new. Since 1965, when cremations represented only 4 percent of the American market, the number of cremation services purchased has almost doubled each decade.

In Missouri, cremations accounted for 32 percent of the market in 2010, up from 23 percent five years earlier, according to the NFDA.

“We’ve see increases in our cremations about every year,” said Bob Bradford, who runs SI Funeral Services in Springfield and has worked 46 years in the funeral industry.

Owned by Overland Park, Kan.-based Suhor Industries, SI Funeral Services has offered crematory services to area funeral homes since 1982. The outfit, 2850 E. Barton St., had the local market cornered into the early 1990s, averaging between 1,100 and 1,400 cremations per year, but competition has come on.

Today, Bradford counts at least a dozen cremation competitors in southwest Missouri, with four in Springfield: Springfield Mortuary Service Inc., Greenlawn Funeral Home, Walnut Lawn Funeral Home Ltd. and Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home Inc. Even with growing demand, services are getting spread thin, and Bradford said SI is performing about half the number of cremations it handled during its peak 20 years ago.

“We would get so far and then a funeral home would build one,” he said of the new retorts, or cremation chambers, that cost between $70,000 and $100,000 to install. “And we’d drop down on our numbers.”

At Adams Funeral Home in Ozark and Nixa, where the price for a direct cremation is $1,500, Funeral Director Sarah Orr said mobility and changing family dynamics have contributed to the cremation trend.

“A lot of the family members we see are spread out across the country. Some of them may not want to take the time to find cemetery space,” said Orr, who was raised in the 49-year-old family business started by her grandparents.

She said 25 years ago, cremations comprised about 10 percent of the company’s business and today represent more than 30 percent. Still, she said visitations and funeral services are important to the majority of area families.

“Some people do visitations before cremations, so I think there are some misconceptions as far as that goes,” Orr said. “Most people do want services, but when cost is a factor, they will look at doing the least amount of services possible.”

A traditional funeral service at Adams is $6,000, and the charge for a casket burial without a ceremony is $1,555, she said.

However, Bradford at SI Funeral Services said the extras in cremations can push the price to rival traditional burials.

“If you compare apples to apples, a direct burial is not that much more than a direct cremation. There are cremation services that run $8,000, $9,000 to $10,000 just like a funeral can,” Bradford said, declining to disclose his company’s wholesale prices.

While centered on cremation services, the Blackwell family at Midwest Cremation also is offering memorial and graveside services and handling anatomical donations. Patriarch Ron Blackwell brings into the venture 50 years of embalming experience, mostly working for a St. Louis-area funeral home.

Operating out of a 1,750-square-foot, nondescript space at 2026 W. Woodland St. in the Battlefield Business Center, the Blackwell’s cremations range from $845 for a direct cremation to $1,760 with a full service. Cremation urns range from $325 to $2,555.

“Funeral homes often don’t want to see that not everybody’s rich,” Blackwell said. “You have to listen to what people are telling you. They generally know how much they have to spend.”

Blackwell said the next advance in the funeral home industry could be alkaline hydrolysis, where a deceased body is placed in a water and potassium hydroxide mix that is heated above 300 degrees to create a pool of liquid remains and bone fragments. The process is said to be environmentally friendly because it produces fewer carbon emissions than cremation. Also referred to as biocremation, the process was deemed legal last year in eight states, including Kansas and Illinois, according to the Cremation Association of North America.

“I really think this is the next big trend, but down the road,” he said, noting the costs are similar to cremation rates. “It is years from catching on.”