The funeral sector celebrates its strength with Jacobean coffins and a mortuary 'tesla'

Ourense clings to death, a leading business in a province on the podium of the oldest in Spain and Europe, to survive.

In the industrial wasteland of Ourense, where the largest employment factories are the agri-food company Coren and the Diputación, death is excellence: the province is the main producer and exporter of coffins in the national market, although it also sells to other European countries.

The sector has celebrated this week in the eleventh edition of Funergal, consolidated international fair around the death.

This year funeral homes are full of business with the volume of business achieved in 2020 and 2021. The pandemic made it easy for them.

"We contribute to making Ourense a benchmark in an industrial sector," Rubén Campo, president of the Association of Funeral Companies of Ourense (Apef), explains to this newspaper with satisfaction.

Campo details that the province leads in number of manufacturing companies and in exports.

"We are practically all family businesses that succeed one another generation after generation, rooted in rural areas and we face national business groups," says the president of the provincial group.

In the premises of Expourense, the fairgrounds that Funergal has hosted, the ham and empanada dishes coexist with the coffins, as an affectionate welcome for visitors to the sector who want to do business.

A classic in the rural environment of Ourense.

Not in vain, the highest percentage of coffin manufacturing companies is concentrated in the region of O Ribeiro, where the mortuary sector competes with the wine sector like darkness and light, as opposite but complementary forces.

Galicia is the second Spanish community with the most funeral companies (171), only surpassed by Andalusia by a dozen, with a considerably larger population and geographical extension.

And in the aging province of Ourense, with just over 305,000 inhabitants, 70 are concentrated, the highest percentage.

Campo believes that culture has a lot to do with this interest in the mortuary, that tribute to death that is cultivated in Galician villages with astonishing naturalness.

And also, with an orography that leads to solitary confinement.

“That is why there is still a demand to watch over the deceased in their own towns and, in the absence of funeral homes in many of them, town halls and neighborhood associations create stays to watch over them,” says the president of Ourense funeral homes.

There is only one similar case, apostille,

11th International Funeral Products and Services Fair in Ourense.Rocio Cibes05/19/22ROCIO CIBES (EL PAÍS)

After two years of pandemic, the sector is thriving.

In 2020 and 2021 funeral services increased considerably.

In Galicia alone, in the first of these two years there were 32,822 deaths, which represented an increase of 4.97% compared to 2019. And in communities such as Madrid, where the Ourense funeral sector also bills, the increase in deaths reached that year 41.17%, according to the president of the Galician Federation of Funeral Services Companies (Agesef), José Luis Varela.

According to data from the study

, recently published by the national association of funeral services (Panasef), in 2020 the Spanish sector had a turnover of more than 1,700 million euros, 135 million more than in 2019, and cremations increased by 0.64 % Over the previous year.

"In Galicia they grew a lot because people here were very afraid of contagion," Campo points out.

"There is no doubt that these two years of the pandemic were very positive for the sector," says the president of the Ourense group, which is now focusing its interest on avoiding the drop in billings.

In Ourense, where many families live from this, fear grips.

Everyone looks towards the Chao 1910 group, based in the region of O Ribeiro, one of the manufacturers in Spain with the highest turnover.

It was founded by the grandfather of the current owners and experienced a powerful sales peak in 1918 with another historic pandemic: the so-called Spanish flu.

After her, came the moments of difficulty until starting the comeback.

Companies strive and bet on innovation.

At the fair they have shown, among other novelties, the first Tesla with a funeral body in Europe, which a Catalan company is putting up for sale for 85,000 euros.

There are also urns made of clay and olive stones that are water-soluble and dissolve in water without leaving a trace.

In this attempt to respect the environment, flower crowns have been introduced that can be replanted.

Along with technological and environmental advances, emotional ones: coffins with the Xacobeo emblem and also coffins for atheists who want to rest underground.

The latter are presented by a company in the Basque Country and replace the crucifixes with magnetized objects made of various metals that are glued in place.

"It can be from a ball to a book, a plant, an animal... anything that identifies the deceased with what his life was like," explain its manufacturers.

After the funeral, the family can take the magnetized piece home.

Something similar is the offer of "shared moments" from a Catalan company: relatives and friends of the deceased can send photos of joint memories from their mobile phones that are placed in an album or in a frame during the wake.

What is called to be a hit is the funeral report.

It is a montage with the best images in life of the deceased and the act of celebration of his death.

Something similar to what happens with baptisms and weddings: a social ceremony in style and with a reminder of death.

All innovation is not enough to cushion the loss of income that the withdrawal of the covid and the competition of the Chinese coffins will entail, their worst nightmare.

That is why these days in Funergal they have made an effort to show the world the most modern coffins, urns and columbariums, crematorium ovens, tombstones, flower arrangements, embalming materials and hearses between the constant coming and going of Galician empanada and toast.

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber