Type | Subsidiary undertaking |
---|---|
Industry | Funeral Services |
Products | Funerals & Memorials |
Parent | The Co-operative Group |
Website | coop |
Funeral Services Limited, trading as Co-op Funeralcare, is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Co-operative Group, based in Manchester, [1] which operates over 1,000 funeral homes and is the largest funeral director in the United Kingdom, accounting for 16.5% of the "at need" funeral market during 2016. [2] Co-op Funeralcare is a member of the National Association of Funeral Directors and is also Funeral Planning Authority registered. [3]
In addition to its funeral home operations, the business also operates repatriation services; crematoria and cemeteries; woodland burial grounds; a memorial masonry manufacturing facility and a coffin factory and workshop.[ citation needed ]
Other co-operative societies such as Midcounties Co-operative use the previous The Co-operative Funeralcare for their businesses.
As a funeral director, Co-op Funeralcare arranges all aspects of a funeral service including transport, flowers, catering, obituaries and orders of service, liaising with the relevant officiants. The business caters for all cultures, faiths and beliefs and their services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Funeralcare also provide a range of funeral plans which allow people to plan and prepare for their funeral in advance. The Co-operative Funeralcare operates all of its funeral homes according to a strict NAFD code of practice, which ensures clients’ rights are properly protected. Employees are encouraged to take a BTEC vocational qualification in funeral directing, which Co-op Funeralcare helped to set up.
Co-op Funeralcare is a national UK funeral director brand and, in 2009, it was the first funeral director to launch a national television advertising campaign. In addition to its Co-op branded funeral homes, Funeralcare also operate a number of private name funeral homes. These businesses have been purchased from independent funeral directors and continue to operate under the family name to maintain high levels of profitability.
Co-op Funeralcare operated Grenoside crematorium in Sheffield, Craigton crematorium in Glasgow, Stockport cemetery and crematorium in Greater Manchester, Emstrey cemetery and crematorium in Shropshire and Lichfield & District crematorium in Staffordshire. These were sold to Dignity in 2016.
Co-op Funeralcare also operated Hinton Park, Poole and Wimbourne woodland burial parks in Dorset and Mayfields remembrance park in the Wirral, Merseyside under the Woodland Burials trading name until these were sold to Southern Co-Operatives.
Co-op Funeralcare's coffin factory and workshop is the largest in the UK, producing over 100,000 coffins every year and supplying its funeral home network with its core range. The business sells memorial masonry throughout the funeral home network and manufactures headstones at a manufacturing facility in Glasgow, Scotland.
Members of The Co-operative Group and participating regional societies earn membership points on funeral and memorial masonry plans. Points are converted into dividend at a rate agreed annually by the Board. [4]
A number of regional co-operatives such as the Central England Co-operative and the Midcounties Co-operative also operate funeral homes under "The co-operative funeralcare" brand, though these are operated and managed independently.
The London Necropolis Company (LNC), formally the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company until 1927, was a cemetery operator established by Act of Parliament in 1852 in reaction to the crisis caused by the closure of London's graveyards in 1851. The LNC intended to establish a single cemetery large enough to accommodate all of London's future burials in perpetuity. The company's founders recognised that the recently invented technology of the railway provided the ability to conduct burials a long distance from populated areas, mitigating concerns over public health risks from living near burial sites. Accordingly, the company bought a very large tract of land in Brookwood, Surrey, around 25 miles (40 km) from London, and converted a portion of it into Brookwood Cemetery. A dedicated railway line, the London Necropolis Railway, linked the new cemetery to the city.
Rookwood Cemetery is a heritage-listed cemetery in Rookwood, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is the largest necropolis in the Southern Hemisphere and is the world's largest remaining operating cemetery from the Victorian era. It is close to Lidcombe railway station about 17 kilometres (11 mi) west of the Sydney central business district. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
.coop is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for the use of cooperatives, their wholly owned subsidiaries, and other organizations that exist to promote or support cooperatives.
the Co-operative Group Society Limited, trading as Co-operative Group Limited, or as Co-op, is a British consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses including grocery retail and wholesale, legal services, funerals and insurance retailing.
The Phone Co-op was an independent consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom until 2018, when facing serious financial difficulties, it transferred itself into a sister society, where it remains today. It provides landline, mobile telephone and Internet services, including web hosting and broadband. Now part of the Midcounties Co-operative, the largest independent co-operative in the UK, it is owned by its customer-members who share in its profits. This makes The Phone Co-op the only telephone co-operative in the UK.
Natural burial is the interment of the body of a dead person in the soil in a manner that does not inhibit decomposition but allows the body to be naturally recycled. It is an alternative to typical contemporary Western burial methods and modern funerary customs.
The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 7,000 registered co-operatives owned by 17 million individual members and which contribute £34bn a year to the British economy. Modern co-operation started with the Rochdale Pioneers' shop in the northern English town of Rochdale in 1844, though the history of co-operation in Britain can be traced back to before 1800. The British co-operative movement is most commonly associated with The Co-operative brand which has been adopted by several large consumers' co-operative societies; however, there are many thousands of registered co-operative businesses operating in the UK. Alongside these consumers' co-operatives, there exist many prominent agricultural co-operatives (621), co-operative housing providers (619), health and social care cooperatives (111), cooperative schools (834), retail co-operatives, co-operatively run community energy projects, football supporters' trusts, credit unions, and worker-owned businesses.
The Midcounties Co-operative Limited, trading as Your Co-op, is a consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom with over 700,000 members. Registered in England under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, it is a member of Co-operatives UK and the Co-operative Retail Trading Group.
Southern Co-op is a regional consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom. The principal activities of the Society are food retailing, funerals and cafés. It operates more than 300 convenience stores as well as funeral homes and Starbucks franchises. Its operations are mainly located in the southern English counties of Berkshire, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, London, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire. Southern Co-op society is owned by over 170,000 members who share in the business's profits and democratically control its operations. It was previously registered as an Industrial and Provident Society, but its status is now as a mutual society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014.
The Co-operative branding may refer to:
Dignity plc is a funeral-related service provider in the United Kingdom, and the only publicly listed company within the country's funeral sector.
Lincolnshire Co-op is an independent consumer co-operative which operates in Lincolnshire, and the surrounding counties. The society has over 220 outlets with its principal trading activity being its food stores, funeral homes, florist and crematorium, travel agencies, post offices and pharmacies. The Society is owned by over 295,000 members who hold Lincolnshire Co-op dividend cards, equal to approximately one quarter of the population of Greater Lincolnshire. The society also owns Gadsby's bakery which is based in Southwell, Nottinghamshire.
DotCooperation LLC is the Registry of the Top-Level Domain (TLD) .coop.
The Co-operative, also known as Co-op, is a brand used by a variety of co-operatives based in the United Kingdom. It is not a single business, but a number of different consumers' co-operatives spanning various sectors.
The Co-operative Travel is a travel agency brand used by some independent retail co-operatives in the United Kingdom, such as Midcounties Co-operative, through their access to The Co-operative brand. Between 2011 and 2016 the brand was also used by TCCT Retail Limited, a travel agency run as a joint venture between the Thomas Cook Group, The Co-operative Group and Central England Co-operative.
The Heart of England Co-operative Society is an independent consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom. Based in Coventry, the Society trades in the English counties of West Midlands, Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire.
The London Necropolis Railway was a railway line opened in November 1854 by the London Necropolis Company (LNC), to carry corpses and mourners between London and the LNC's newly opened Brookwood Cemetery 23 miles (37 km) southwest of London in Brookwood, Surrey. At the time the largest cemetery in the world, Brookwood Cemetery was designed to be large enough to accommodate all the deaths in London for centuries to come, and the LNC hoped to gain a monopoly on London's burial industry. The cemetery had intentionally been built far enough from London so as never to be affected by urban growth and was dependent on the recently invented railway to connect it to the city.
Co-op Energy is a British energy supply company based in Warwick that began trading in 2010. It sells renewable electricity and gas to its ethically concerned member owner/customers and is a established large operator, an alternative to the Big Six energy suppliers. Given that its parent is Midcounties Co-operative, it is the only co-operative supplier in the British market, meaning members can receive dividends and/or interest on their trade with the business. Since August 2019, energy supply, billing and customer service have been operated by Octopus Energy.
Central England Co-operative, trading as Central Co-op, is a regional consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom, based in Lichfield and which trades from over 400 sites across the English Midlands and East Anglia. The business is owned and democratically controlled by its members who can stand for election to the board and who also share in the society's profits. A proportion of the profits of the business are also invested in local community groups through its community dividend grants programme and its more than 60 member classes.
Craigton Cemetery is a cemetery in south-west Glasgow dating from the mid-19th century. It stands on Berryknowes Road.