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Death is not only inevitable: it's fairly profitable. From customized caskets with a race car motif to "wearable" urns shaped like bracelets, funeral-related businesses are finding new ways to compete and meet the demands of customers who want their final send-off to be unique. New Hampshire itself is home to some of the biggest players in the funeral business. Casket Royale, which calls Hampton Falls home, is the largest direct-to-consumer casket dealer in the world selling thousands of caskets a year. Meanwhile, Batesville Casket Company, based in Indiana, is the largest casket maker in the world and has a manufacturing facility in Nashua. In fact, former president Ronald Reagan is buried in a casket made at the Nashua facility.
It's an industry that has certainly piqued the interest of the general public considering the popularity of such shows as Six Feet Under and Family Plots. And it is also an evolving industry in NH. "Many unique characteristics of the funeral business are changing," says Raymond Neun, president of the Nil Funeral Directors Association and the owner of Thibeault-Neun Funeral Home in Franklin and Paquette-Neun Funeral Home in Northfield. "For example, the percentage of cremation services in New Hampshire is catching up with the rest of the country.
Vital Statistics
While most people don't want to think about caskets, urns, headstones and funeral arrangements, the fact is eventually those purchases and decisions need to be made. From funeral parlors and crematoriums to florists and casket makers, there is an economic side to death. It is one of the few human experiences that inevitably touches everyone's life. On average, a family goes through planning a funeral once every 7.2 years, says Arthur "Buddy" Phaneuf, funeral director for Phaneuf Funeral Homes and Crematorium in Manchester.
In 2002 alone, 9,951 people died in NH, according to the NH Department of Health and Human Services. There is an ever-present demand for funeral-related services and for businesses that can provide products and services with compassion.
The Phaneuf family is among those who know that compassion is just as important as business savvy to succeed in the funeral industry. "(Death) is (something) that most people have to deal with at various times in their life. Because of that, you deal with...