How they wear you down
I first heard from Lisa Mullan when she wrote to me on 23 Feb 2013: My father was told he had terminal lung cancer in May 2012 and had around 6 months to live. He subsequently purchased a Funeral Care Plan from the Cooperative Funeral Care, Plympton, Devon and requested he be buried at the […]
Funeralcare for sale?
The capital shortfall at the Co-operative Bank is estimated to be somewhere between £1–1.8 billion. This debt has been downgraded by Moody’s to junk status. The Co-op is going to have to sell assets in order to pay it off. Here’s the news for Funeralworld. Today’s Daily Telegraph speculates as follows: Further asset disposals are […]
Where did it all go so terribly wrong for the Co-op?
The GFG is relentless in its criticism of Co-operative Funeralcare for two reasons above all. First, we believe that Funeralcare does not operate in accordance with the vision Rochdale Pioneers, who would be dismayed, at a time of rising funeral poverty, to see the way Funeralcare treats the poor. Instead of focussing on its core […]
If small is beautiful, look lovely
There isn’t a single successful business in Britain that doesn’t seek to grow through mergers and acquisitions. Consolidation, they call it. It’s a factor of competitive capitalism. Or greed, if you prefer. Whichever. The bigger you are, the more efficiently you can trade. Efficiency enables you to bring your prices down, blow off competitors — […]
People’s undertaker doing fine
The Co-operative Group reports that, for the 53 weeks ended 5 January 2013, funerals revenue was up 6.4% to £348m, with operating profit up to £60m from £55m.
Basket cases
Here’s an interesting claim from The Co-operative Group: “The Co-operative has a long tradition of leading the way on fair trade and the launch of the first-ever Traidcraft endorsed fairly traded coffin range at our funeral homes is a natural, if unusual, progression.” This first-ever status is endorsed by Traidcraft: Larry Bush, Marketing Director, Traidcraft, […]
Why did we delete that blog post?
This morning we received an email which had been forwarded in error by Mr Potts, Customer Relations Manager at The Co-operative Funeralcare, to a bereaved family – not we hasten to add one of the families referred to in the message – who forwarded it to us. On reading it, we immediately deleted the blog […]
Driving up personalisation to the next level
This is The Cooperative Funeralcare’s new telly ad. Lorinda Robinson, Head of Marketing, The Co-operative Funeralcare, said: “The advert focuses on personalisation and The Co-operative Funeralcare’s ability to deliver personal touches to make a funeral more memorable and respectful. The business has been a pioneer in TV advertising in the funeral industry and the new […]
Piece of mind for the man with the plan
There’s an unsparing piece in The Times, 11 November, on financial products associated with funeral planning: Hundreds of thousands of the poorest pensioners are losing thousands of pounds by buying into poor-value funeral planning products offered by some of the most trusted high street names. Funeral benefit plans offered as add-ons to over-50s life insurance […]
Pay up or else
Ian Godfrey’s brother Michael died intestate aged 40 in August of this year. His funeral arrangements were undertaken by Ian’s sister, Sally. The chosen funeral director was the Nailsea branch of Co-operative Funeralcare, who duly prepared an estimate. Click on it to bring it up to full size (Sally’s full name and address have been redacted): […]
