Pet Casket Factory Tours

If your travels ever take you to Gladstone, Michigan, you will want to give serious consideration to visiting the Hoegh Pet Casket Company.

The following information is from Hunts’ Guide to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula:

Here at the world’s largest pet casket factory, Hoegh’s (pronounced “hoig”) actively promotes its products with tours. Groups and individuals are invited to “learn the history of the pet burial phenomenon.” The display room includes samples of caskets plus pet art and clippings, mostly about beloved and heroic dogs. Caskets come in eight sizes, from 10″ to 52″, and various interior styles. They are also bought by amputees who wish to bury their severed limbs. Most are sold through the nation’s over 700 pet cemeteries.
   
The factory tour shows how caskets are vacuum-formed from sheets of plastic which are first softened in an oven, then drawn into an aluminum mold with a vacuum. This process also used in forming everyday objects from food containers to truck bed liners. Excess is trimmed by hand with a band saw. Five manufacturing employees make about 18 caskets an hour.
   
The model cemetery features plastic acrylic markers and metal photo markers, also sold by Hoegh, on a remembrance wall, monuments, and a columbarium, akin to a mausoleum. Heartfelt inscriptions testify to pet owners’ devotion to their deceased pets.
   
Caskets retail starting at around $15 at pet stores, pet cemeteries, and humane societies. A really plush crepe-lined coffin for a St. Bernard would cost over $350.

317 Delta Ave. just east of Fourth Ave, east of downtown Gladstone. Call (906) 428-2151 to arrange a tour, available year-round, weekdays 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Eastern Time. Handicap accessible.

For additional information, see Pet Casket Factory Tours, RoadsideAmerica.com.