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Eco-friendly embalming products win accolades

The Champion Company’s line uses all plant-based materials, including cinnamon.

Paul Bauman, vice president of Champion, and Dimitri Gianakopoulos, executive vice president of the company, are proud of their company's new eco-friendly embalming products, which won Wittenberg University's Center for Applied Management's 2010 Entrepreneurial Business Award. Staff photo by Bill Lackey

Bill Lackey Paul Bauman, vice president of Champion, and Dimitri Gianakopoulos, executive vice president of the company, are proud of their company's new eco-friendly embalming products, which won Wittenberg University's Center for Applied Management's 2010 Entrepreneurial Business Award. Staff photo by Bill Lackey

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By Elaine Morris Roberts, Staff Writer 6:02 PM Saturday, April 17, 2010

A local company that’s been in business for more than 130 years has for decades remained cutting-edge, surpassing the competition.

The Champion Company, founded in 1878, has two separate divisions. One produces embalming products and the other manufactures specialized shipping containers for jet aircraft engines and missiles.

“The chemical side and funeral supplies is where we started,” said Executive Vice President Dimitri Gianakopoulos.

“The funeral division made steel burial vaults at one time and essentially that’s what we do now, they’re just larger and more expensive. The aircraft business evolved about 55 years ago,” he said.

Innovation in the embalming segment of the business has led to the Champion Company being named the winner of Wittenberg University’s Center for Applied Management’s 2010 Entrepreneurial Business Award.

The company was owned by the Baker family from shortly after its founding until 1988, when brothers Art and Jim Gianakopoulos purchased the business.

“The family was involved in manufacturing, but not the chemical business. The interest in the Champion Co. was because of its prominence in the industry, its quality and its direction of safer alternatives,” said Paul Bauman, vice president and general manager of the funeral division.

Bauman is a former funeral director who has been with the company for 29 years.

Innovation has been a part of the company’s philosophy long before the Gianakopoulos family was involved. In the early 1960s, Champion introduced a line of embalming products with a reduced amount of formaldehyde which made them less toxic, but still effective, Bauman said.

About 15 years ago, the company introduced formaldehyde-free products, which then led to the most recent innovation, Enigma, the company’s fourth generation of products.

“We’ve been doing what’s happening in other industries — looking for ways to use less harmful chemicals. And other companies (in the funeral industry) are about 20 years behind us. They’re now breaking into the area we entered many years ago,” said Dimitri Gianakopoulos, who is Art’s son.

While Bauman would not discuss specific sales figures, of the multi-million dollar company and its 63 employees he said, “Sales are going well. ...With regard to relative size in the industry, Champion holds its own in the top three manufacturers and is the leader in the toxicity reduced and formaldehyde-free segment of the industry.”

A puzzle solved

For families searching for more environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional embalming, answers were hard to find. For employees creating embalming chemicals, safer working conditions were equally as important and often as elusive.

Enigma, Champion’s line of  100 percent natural and biodegradable embalming chemicals, was brought out to offer a solution to both quandaries.

All of the products in the year-old line are made from non-toxic ingredients including vanillic aldehyde, clove oil and cinnamon.

“The natural botanicals we use are all food-grade. They’re non-toxic, naturally occurring preservatives,” Bauman said. “The goal has always been to provide safe alternatives. ...Art’s always been hands-on and from the very beginning it was about doing what’s right. For him that was making a safer environment for his employees and customers. He’s made the decision (at all of his businesses) to take the high road even if it was more costly because it was the right thing to do.”

Enigma products are helping change the burial process for those looking for green options. In eco-balming, as it is known, only biodegradable caskets and no grave liners are used. Gravesites in green sections of cemeteries are often without markers — GPS coordinates are used to locate graves — and planted over with natural vegetation.

“With toxic chemicals, preservation is indefinite, but with Enigma, it’s a temporary situation. They’re all plant-based, natural. They perform for 5 to 10 days and after that they are biodegradable. ...They will hold the body for viewing — basically in suspension for a few days — then the natural decomposition process begins,” Bauman said.

Enigma has received the Green Burial Council’s seal of approval. The only products to have that designation, they fulfill the criteria which include full disclosure of all ingredients, no chemicals that have any OSHA exposure and no chemicals that evolve into other harmful chemicals.

“We’ve listed all the ingredients to show there are no secrets. This is an industry first to have full disclosure. ...There’s nothing to hide here and if a competitor chooses to try and recreate this, everyone will know we did it first. ... There’s no room for questionable integrity,” Gianakopoulos said.

When compared to traditional embalming chemicals, funeral homes will pay more for Enigma products, but with proper usage, it should not impact the end cost to purchasers of funeral home services, Bauman said.

With the introduction of Enigma, the company has found an additional opportunity to reintroduce their formaldehyde-free products.

“It’s giving us an opportunity to return to customers who shunned us before, now 15 years later they’re more interested,” Gianakopoulos said.

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