Recently, the topic “The price of pet cemeteries is approaching the housing prices in the suburbs of Beijing” has become a hot search topic on Weibo, attracting widespread heated discussion among netizens. Take tree burial as an example. The approximate price of burying a pet under a tree is between 1,000 yuan and 3,000 yuan, and many pets will be buried under a tree. If you want to be buried alone and equipped with a tombstone in the shape of a "hexagonal pavilion" or other shapes, the price will rise to 10,800 yuan.
And this pavilion may only occupy 1/4 square meters, converted to 1 square meters, the price is as high as 40,000 yuan, which is close to the housing prices in some suburbs of Beijing.
"I feel ashamed to be born as a human." "These days, many people live worse lives than pets." "Is it my problem or the dog's problem?" Many netizens ridiculed in the comment area.
Funeral care is the end point of the pet economy, and it is also a new thing that has surfaced with its rapid economic growth in recent years.
The high prices make this business extremely profitable, and even illegal. Compliance approval of land use rights, selection of pet cremation equipment, price tags, etc. all test the moral sense of businesses.
When all this is exposed in the sun, it begins to show that this emerging industry is not far away from formalization. After all, respecting death is a piece of public knowledge.
01 The price of a pet cemetery has soared to 40,000 yuan per square meter.
The price of a pet cemetery is close to housing prices in the suburbs of Beijing, with the price of a pet cemetery rising to 40,000 yuan per square meter.
A piece of news exposed the pet funeral industry on Weibo, which has 200 million daily active users.
Qingbo data shows that the information release index of the pet funeral industry has remained below 200. After the topic of a pet cemetery costing tens of thousands of dollars became a hot search, the public opinion index of the entire pet funeral network rose to 700. The pet funeral industry has also entered the public eye and attracted people's attention.
Currently, people mainly dispose of pet remains in four ways: burying them themselves, finding a municipal specialized animal carcass harmless disposal agency for processing, going to a pet funeral agency for cremation, or randomly discarding pet remains.
The protagonist mentioned in the previous news is the pet funeral agency.
It is reported that pet funerals are divided into general funerals, tree burials, pet ashes and diamonds, pet specimens, and space funerals.
General funerals refer to conventional cremation into soil;
Tree burials refer to burial under trees;
Pet ashes diamonds refer to the deep processing of crystals formed from pet ashes into jewelry that can be kept permanently;
Pet specimens are similar to the former, except that they are finally presented in the form of specimens;
Space funeral refers to scattering pet ashes into space.
According to the "Pet Industry Enterprise Data Report (2020)", there are currently nearly 1,400 pet funeral-related enterprises in my country whose business scope includes "pet funeral, pet burial, and animal harmless treatment" and whose status is active, existing, moving in, or moving out. Limited liability companies account for nearly 80%.
As of November 2020, my country has added more than 1,200 pet funeral-related companies that year (all business status), a year-on-year increase of 447%, which has exceeded the total increase in historical related companies.
The core of pet funeral is not the form, but the emotion, and emotion cannot be measured by money. Many pet owners are willing to pay for their pet's death to be handled decently.
Market demand creates business opportunities.
There are various funeral package services on the market, with the lowest starting price ranging from a few hundred yuan to no upper limit.
If you enter the keywords "pet funeral" and "go to the store" on Meituan (Beijing), you can see that the per capita price marked by most merchants is basically more than 1,000 yuan.
Among them, the average per capita of Rainbow Planet is 1,967 yuan, the per capita of Chongmu Store in Fengtai is 1,341 yuan, and the per capita of Qingshan Pet Funeral Shop in Changping Town is 1,585 yuan...
Numerous phenomena show that pet funerals are "popular" and ignited the last link downstream of this industry chain.
02 RMB 300 billion pet market, the funeral penetration rate is less than 10%
The development of pet funeral is in sync with the "other economy" to a certain extent.
iResearch data shows that the market size of my country's pet industry will be close to 300 billion yuan in 2020. Driven by policy, economic, social and technological factors, as well as more potential pet owners and emotional consumption brought about by the epidemic, the industry will continue to maintain steady growth in the next three years, with a compound growth rate expected to be 14.2%, and the scale will reach 445.6 billion yuan by 2023.
The "White Paper on China's Pet Consumption Trends in 2021" shows that the proportion of pet owners with a monthly household income of more than 1.5w reaches 72%.
Among them, 61% of pet owners are married with children, occupying the first place in the demographic background distribution of pet owners, followed closely by the single population, accounting for about 15%.
Zhang Chen, with a bachelor’s degree, a monthly family income of more than 1.5W, single population, and a typical representative of pet owners.
Heavy work continues to squeeze modern people’s lives. Pets can bring more happiness to people and help modern people relieve stress and loneliness.
So, 4 years ago, Zhang Chen planned to raise a cat. At first, his request was very simple. He wanted to have a pet that was obedient and independent enough. Cat became his first choice.
He has an orange cat. After that, when he got home from get off work, what awaited him was no longer a cold cement wall, but a series of clinging calls from a cat.
He teased the cat, and the cat teased him, clinging to each other to resist the lonely life in Beidiao. He regards cats as his own children and gives them the best he can.
But the good times did not last long. When he was 3 years old, the orange cat fell seriously ill. He went to the hospital to check the cat, watched the cat push various machines, and watched the cat take injections. His usually strong heart began to collapse..
He doesn’t know if all this is in vain, but even if there is a chance, he will still choose to continue to treat the cat, which will probably cost nearly 10,000 yuan.
Every year, about 3 million pets pass away in our country, which means that nearly 10,000 pets disappear almost every day.
The life span of a pet is often only one-sixth or seventh of that of a human.
After all, the orange cat couldn't live up to his fate and left sadly one night.
It was already the next morning when Zhang Chen found out. He called to the orange cat in a daze, and the house was so quiet that there was no sound.
He suddenly woke up and found that the orange cat was already lying there motionless. He sat on the ground holding it for a long time, feeling that the whole world was empty.
The doctor has also mentioned that the cat’s life is short, but he has always been unwilling or even taboo to talk about this topic.
According to the dictionary, death is a life phenomenon relative to the existence of living organisms, that is, the permanent termination of all biological functions that maintain the survival of an organism.
Looking at the physical remains of the cat after its death, he chose to bury it on the wild hill behind the community and let the cat rest in peace.
In this way, he can communicate with the cat telepathically by opening the window every day.
Until he saw that hot search some time ago, he didn’t know that pets also have a funeral business. But two years ago, little was heard about this business.
The penetration rate of the pet funeral industry is not high.
It is reported that about 220,000 pets die in Beijing every year, of which less than 9.4% of pet owners choose to be cremated, not to mention other new first- and second-tier cities.
03 Funeral is a decent farewell
Burial is no longer popular.
In other media reports, Hu Changmin, associate professor of the Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine at Huazhong Agricultural University, once mentioned, "Pet corpses contain a variety of germs. If they are discarded or buried at will, they can easily spread the germs and lead to the spread of zoonotic diseases.
In addition, after pet corpses are buried, some pathogens can survive in the bone marrow of the corpse for a year, and the spores can survive in the soil for several years. This is a threat to the environment and is especially likely to pollute water sources."
In addition, according to Article 21 of my country’s Animal Epidemic Prevention Law (latest revised version in 2020), epidemic-infected animals and their excrement, epidemic-infected animal products, animal carcasses that died of illness or unknown causes of death, animal excrement in vehicles, and pollutants such as bedding, packaging, and containers must be handled in accordance with the regulations of the veterinary authority of the State Council and must not be disposed of at will.
Cremation is becoming the mainstream of pet funerals. Unlike the huge profits trumpeted by the media, the pet funeral business is not simple.
Zhihu user Blueberry Review pointed out in the article that professional pet cremation equipment is a complex machine that integrates circuit systems, mechanical transmission systems, gas systems, and safety control systems. The furnace temperature provided is between 1300-2000°C. The air pressure and oxygen supply in the furnace need to be adjusted at any time to ensure that the pet's remains are fully burned and the exhaust gas meets emission standards.
After continuous burning at such high temperatures, all bacteria and viruses have been killed, leaving behind the purest ashes.
The investment cost of such an instrument is as high as hundreds of thousands.
Pet cemetery location selection is also one of the obstacles.
Because pet funeral services involve urban management, the Funeral Management Office of the Civil Affairs Bureau, the Epidemic Prevention Section of the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau, and industry and commerce. There is no department in charge of this business, and no relevant policies and regulations have been issued.
Some existing pet land on the market is basically idle land or ownerless wasteland. It is also difficult for pet organizations to obtain operating qualifications, and there are questions about legality.
Even if there is a suitable place, rent, decoration costs, manpower training and maintenance are all major expenses. If it is not operated well for one or two years, it will be difficult to recover the money.
However, the return cycle of bad merchants is obviously excluded. Nowadays, many businesses are exploiting loopholes to secretly bury, burn, mix ashes, and increase costs on the non-fee list.
In the early stage of the development of an industry, it is bound to be full of all kinds of non-compliance. However, as this business is exposed to public supervision, compliance is the long-term solution.
How to bid farewell to pets in a dignified manner is not only something pet owners need to learn, but it also tests the moral sense of a business.