As the economic slowdown lingers and unemployment rates hang near double digit levels, businesses long thought of as "recession-proof" are beginning to feel a pinch.
In the funeral service industry nationwide, increases in cremation services, cash-strapped consumers and a declining death rate are starting to affect the books.
"In the funeral business, you can't have sales, you can't have promotions, you can't have things to increase your business," said Russell Friberg, owner of Heritage Funeral Home & Crematory in Chattanooga. "You really just have to wait for your phone to ring."
Friberg, who has been a funeral director in the area for 40 years, said his funeral home has felt the effects of the sluggish economy, though "it's not a huge thing, because you can't stop the death rate."
CREMATIONS IN TENNESSEE* 2007: 15 percent* 2008: 19 percent* 2009: 23 percentSource: Cremation Association of North AmericaCOST DIFFERENTIAL* $1,650: Typical cremation* $7,300: Typical casket funeral (not including grave site, vault and headstone)Source: Cremation Association of North America
Poor man's option
What has been affected, he said, is peoples' ability to pay for the service if they've lost their job or don't have insurance. When that happens, they tend to alter their choices.
"Instead of using a particular casket they would have chosen earlier, they would say 'We want a less expensive casket,' or 'We want a different type of service,'" Friberg said. "It's all relative to peoples' ability to pay."
Cremation - typically thousands of dollars cheaper than casket burials - has steadily risen throughout the country, from about 24 percent in 1998 to 36 percent in 2008, according to statistics from the National Funeral Directors Association.
In Tennessee, one of 10 states with the lowest cremation rate, the practice has grown from below 10 percent in 2004 to 23 percent in 2009, said John Ross, executive director of the Cremation Association of North America.
Profits decline
At Covenant Funeral Home and Cremation Service on Bonny Oaks Drive, the increase has been more pronounced. In 2008, cremations made up about a third of the funeral home's business and within a year it grew to 58 percent, owner Walter Crox said.
"We've seen a very significant increase in the rate of cremations," he said. "And it affects our profits. We make much less on cremation than we do on anything else."
Though increased demand for less expensive services can mean less for a mortuary's bottom line, it can also make way for new businesses in the area.
"It used to be that an urn was an urn was an urn," Ross said. "But many consumers just felt that was not the appropriate way to memorialize their loved one, and they wanted something unique."
Made to order
That's what Virginia Polley was banking on when she started her business, Unique Urns, two years ago. The Lookout Mountain resident commissions local glass, ceramics and woodworking artists to create urns that hold either human or pet cremains.
Since they are made to order, the turnaround is about five to six weeks, she said.
Though there has been some interest in the urns, the business has been slow getting off the ground, Polley said, partly because of the economy.
"The other part is getting people used to the idea of fine art for cremation," she said, adding the vessels range from $190 to nearly $1,200.
Friberg said that in the past few years he's noticed a lot of changing attitudes when it comes to funeral services.
He said in addition to things such as custom urns and necklaces that can carry cremains, people are now more creative with typical casket burials as well.
"People are designing and creating the type of funeral they want to have," he said. "It's becoming more inclusive, more participatory. You see that in a lot of funerals now, which to me is more of a funeral, when people participate."
Contact Brittany Cofer at bcofer@timesfreepress.com or (423) 757-6476. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/brittanycofer.