Recognising Industry Excellence
This year’s Scottish Funeral Awards Is about to undertake its biggest change since its creation over six years ago. After listening to feedback and consulting with various businesses and experts from the sector we are delighted to announce our new categories and judging procedures moving forward.
We will be announcing our industry judging panel which will oversee submissions and pick our winners. For certain categories we will have site visits to inspect the business by Industry experts helping to improve the judging process. Its vitally important that our winners are fully inspected. With increased media and public attention, we will continue to build an event the industry can get behind and be proud to support.
Categories
Best Specialist Funeral Service
Celebrates a provider offering something truly different in the funeral sector — whether it’s cultural expertise, eco-conscious services, or highly tailored support. This award recognises those who bring creativity and innovation to meet families’ unique needs with professionalism and care.
Outstanding Contribution to the Funeral Industry
Reserved for someone who has shaped the future of the profession through innovation, leadership, or long-standing dedication. This award honours individuals or organisations whose work has influenced not only colleagues but also the wider communities they serve.
Outstanding Customer Service
More than kindness alone, this award recognises excellence in listening, responsiveness, and attention to detail. It celebrates those who treat every family as though they were their own, setting the highest standards for service and compassion.
Scotland’s Best Funeral Officiant
A great officiant brings stories to life and gives comfort when words are hardest to find. This award recognises the individual who can craft a ceremony that reflects the personality of the deceased while offering solace to those left behind.
Scotland’s Best Memorial Company
Memorials stand as lasting symbols of love and remembrance. This award honours a company that combines artistry, craftsmanship, and empathy to create tributes that provide comfort for generations to come.
Scotland’s Best Crematorium
Acknowledging a crematorium that excels in both practical service and emotional support. This award highlights facilities that provide dignity, respect, and calm surroundings, helping families through one of life’s most difficult moments.
Scotland’s Best Family-Owned Business
Family businesses often carry traditions across generations. This award recognises those who balance heritage with modern service, proving that family ownership can bring a unique warmth, integrity, and community spirit to funeral care.
Scotland’s Best Florist
Flowers speak when words cannot. This award celebrates a florist whose arrangements go beyond decoration — turning petals and colour into messages of love, memory, and respect that truly enhance a service.
Scotland’s Best Female Undertaker
Recognises an outstanding female professional who has brought leadership, compassion, and strength to the funeral profession. This award celebrates her dedication and the positive difference she makes in a traditionally male-dominated field.
Scotland’s Best Funeral Director (50–100 funerals)
Smaller in scale but not in impact, this award celebrates a director who delivers personal, attentive care across 50–100 funerals annually. Their commitment ensures every family receives a service shaped around their needs.
Scotland’s Best Funeral Director (100–250 funerals)
Awarded to a director who balances scale with sensitivity. Managing 100–250 funerals a year, they uphold the highest standards of professionalism while never losing sight of the personal touches that matter most.
Scotland’s Best Funeral Director (250–500 funerals)
Recognising a leader who combines organisational skill with heartfelt compassion. This award goes to a director managing 250–500 services annually while consistently maintaining excellence across every aspect of their work.
Scotland’s Best Funeral Director (500–1000 funerals)
Honours a professional who has mastered the challenge of high-volume service without compromising on dignity, detail, or care. Managing 500–1000 funerals each year, they embody dedication at scale.
Scotland’s Best Funeral Director (1000+ funerals)
Awarded to a director operating at the highest level, overseeing 1000 or more funerals annually. This category recognises their ability to maintain excellence, consistency, and compassion across an impressive scale of service.
Best Memorial Product Supplier
From headstones to keepsakes, memorial products preserve connections to loved ones. This award recognises suppliers who combine quality, reliability, and thoughtfulness in the items that help families remember.
Scotland’s Best Funeral Director
The most prestigious category, recognising the very best overall. This award honours a funeral director who sets the benchmark for the industry — a true leader in compassion, professionalism, and service.
Scotland’s Best Improved Funeral Director
Celebrates transformation and progress within the profession. Whether through innovation, training, or improved services, this award goes to a director who has made remarkable strides in recent years.
Scotland’s Best Funeral Cortege
The cortege is the final journey, and this award recognises the team who makes that moment dignified and memorable. From presentation to precision, they deliver excellence in every detail.
Scotland’s Best Care Team
Behind every successful funeral director is a team who supports families day and night. This award celebrates the strength, compassion, and dedication of those who work together to make a difference.
The Wow Moment Award
Sometimes one gesture, act, or detail creates a memory that families treasure forever. This award recognises the business that went far beyond expectation to deliver a moment of unforgettable care.
Charity Partner
Baby Loss Retreat is a compassionate charity dedicated to supporting families who have experienced the heartbreak of baby loss. Our counselling & retreats provide a safe, nurturing space where bereaved parents can rest, reflect, connect with others who understand, and begin to heal through shared support, gentle activities, and community.
Sponsors
Judges
Alison Anderson MBE
Alison brings more than three decades of specialist experience in NHS Pathology, with a distinguished career dedicated to delivering the highest standards of care within adult and paediatric mortuary and autopsy services.
With her blend of operational expertise, regulatory insight, and unwavering commitment to dignity in death care, she now works as an independent mortuary services consultant, advising organisations across the UK and internationally on regulatory compliance, best practice, governance, and service improvement.
Her career includes deployments to major international disaster and victim identification operations, UN forensic missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, repatriation work at RAF Brize Norton, and the recovery and identification of WW1 servicemen from a mass grave in Northern France.
Alison is widely recognised for her professionalism and excellence in the care of the deceased and their families and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List (2011) for Services to Anatomical Pathology Technology.
John Adams
Past National President of NAFD
John Adams is a fourth-generation funeral director from Shropshire and Director of Perry & Phillips Funeral Directors. He is a past National President of the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) and an active campaigner for greater bereavement awareness within society.
John is the co-author of the book Don’t Tell the Children and hosts the podcast Death: A Changing Industry, which explores grief, funerals, and the changing relationship society has with death and bereavement. His work has received national recognition and focuses on encouraging open conversations around grief.
He has delivered keynote talks internationally, including at the Australian Funeral Directors Association convention in Vietnam, the ACCA conference in Sydney, and the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand conference in Auckland, where he has spoken about leadership, the future of funerals, and bereavement education.
John is also leading a national campaign in the UK to introduce bereavement awareness into the school curriculum, aiming to help future generations better understand grief and support one another through life’s most difficult moments.
Malcolm Gerdes-Hansen
Celebrant
Malcolm was ordained in America and spent 14 years in Fungerume Zaire, formerly “The Belgian Congo”. He was a mission minister with extra duties, undertakers do not exist in a bush station and as minister he was responsible for all funeral arrangements including the service which was usually just the Committal but not all was that simple as there were several religions to arrange for. When he returned to the UK he was attached to the Diocese of Rochester at Rochester Cathedral fostering a very good relationship with all the local funeral directors.
On leaving the church he returned to Scotland and built up two very successful celebrancy services working in Edinburgh, Dundee and most of Central Scotland he was known for carrying out Burial at Sea services.
