Brothers dead serious about funeral industry

Working in the funeral industry is not for the faint of heart, but brothers Aleric and Sheldon Solomon can’t picture themselves doing anything else for a living.

The Solomon duo have been working in the industry for more than 20 years.

The brothers now run their family’s business, Fern Funerals, which was first opened in 1996 and run by their parents, Charmaine and Peter Solomon. Aleric is the managing director and Sheldon works as the director for the funeral home.

Sheldon said he never thought this was an industry he would work in.

“I was six years old when we started the business and I refused to tell anyone that my family works in the funeral industry,” he said.

Growing up he became more involved in the business.

Aleric said he would go to school and his mom would call to say she needed assistance with a body removal.

“Then I would play sick at school, to go home and render the service. I did this for most of my high school years,” he said.

“I always prayed that it wouldn’t be someone related to one of my teachers,” he added jokingly.

“The only way someone would find out was if I was conducting a funeral for one of my friend’s family members, pitching up as an undertaker with the hearse,” he said.

“From that point, it just grew.”

“That was where my passion for this started. I left school in grade 11 because business expanded so much.”

A month ago, they decided to open a coffin manufacturing factory. The factory will service an increasing demand for coffins in Cape Town and the rest of South Africa.

Aleric said the decision to manufacture coffins had multiple contributing factors.

“There were times when the coffins we received were not to our standards in terms of quality, finishing and size,” he said.

“Sometimes suppliers only make a certain amount of coffins in a certain size and when it’s up, we have to tell the family that we can’t do the funeral that weekend,” he added.

“The coffin has the most eyes on it and it’s the one thing that matters the most.”

Sheldon said they often receive requests for specific coffins based on height and weight.

“We want to be able to give people what they want and not turn them away,” he said.

“When there are manufacturing faults, we couldn’t answer to our clients as we weren’t the company that made it,” he added.

President of the National Funeral Practitioners Association of South Africa Julie Mbuthuma said there was a high demand for coffin manufacturers in the country. But suppliers are meeting the demand.

“It is a major challenge for a new business to gain access to the market as the profit margins have decreased drastically since the onset of Covid-19 and the July unrest,” she said.

In the first month since the factory’s opening, the Solomons managed to manufacture 200 hand-crafted coffins, which take on average two hours to make from start to finish.

The business expansion meant acquiring property, tools, appropriate materials and ensuring suppliers have stock.

The factory also takes custom-made coffin orders, Sheldon said.

“We often see requests for the Rastafarian colours, marble granite finishes, soccer teams badges and colours and also political parties,” he said.

Aleric added: “For funerals of children, we also received requests for cartoon characters like Elsa from Frozen or Barney.”

On an average week, Fern Funerals does 25 funerals in Cape Town. At the lower end, people can expect to pay R7500 for a basic funeral including necessities. This includes the coffin, hearse, flowers and the burial from a Monday to Friday.

At a higher end, funerals can go up to R115 000 depending on the add-ons including specific requests like a hearse with wings where the doors flip open and the coffin is on a rotating table inside the hearse.

Additionally, families might want to hire limos for family cars and these kinds of specifications are what push up the price

On a lighter note, Sheldon has started a TikTok account (@thefuneralboss) where he shares humour relating to the industry. His videos on the app have amassed nearly half a million views in the space of two weeks.