Candis Best isn’t a funeral director and she doesn’t employ one, but she hopes to grow Leaf and Water Cremation into a national company through the force of interest and enthusiasm in alkaline hydrolysis. Disposition continues to change. Earlier this year, we spoke with Wake Forest law professor Tanya Marsh about the consumer preferences survey Cremation Association of North America funded and the college prepared. Among the more interesting findings suggested that flame cremation was a popular second choice. That is, the most prevalent kind of disposition isn’t the most popular. It is the easiest and most accessible.
From Best’s perspective, and in her own personal experience, this means a serious opportunity in “alternative” dispositions like alkaline hydrolysis. That’s why she left her native New York to open a new business in a new industry, in a new state, in a new town.
Following her sister’s death in December 2022 and her mother’s five months later, Best found herself navigating final arrangements for the first time. She felt deeply uncomfortable with the idea of direct cremation, but it was the only available to her at the time.
“I was confronted with the reality that I made the decision to set her remains on fire, which I thought was a disrespectful way to treat the remains of someone who I loved more than my own life,” Best said. “As soon as I completed the arrangements and sat with what I had decided, I felt horrible.”
The more she thought about the lack of direct disposition options, the more she focused on making a change. With alkaline hydrolysis still illegal in New York, she considered options that could help people who have the same experiences as her throughout the broader Northeast. Today, operating out of Bennington, Vermont, Best has an operation that is set to expand regionally before moving south and west with opportunity and demand.
Navigating the Regulatory Labyrinth
Entering a new state, a new town, and a new industry without a background as a licensed funeral director presented significant challenges. In 2023, Best initially looked toward Maryland, but that state hadn’t made enough headway in legalizing the process. In her research, Best also discovered that landlords could be a little squeamish about new disposition facilities, which meant she would have to purchase a building wherever she ended up. With a focus on starting service for the Northeast, she looked to Vermont, one of the few area states at the time where the practice was legal. Best went under contract on a building in October 2023, secured an SBA loan in August 2024, and finally cleared regulatory hurdles to open its doors in August 2025.
Along the way, the startup faced unexpected bureaucratic trials, including a temporary requirement for a supervising funeral director before the state clarified that standalone disposition facilities did not require one. Best sees the regulatory missteps and delays as the price for being ahead of the curve. She’s proud that she paved the way for subsequent green disposition operators in the state, streamlining the path for those who followed.
Infrastructure, Tracking, and Commercial Support
When Leaf and Water Cremation opened, Best had invested in a Bio-Response Solutions Aqumator to ensure reliability and minimize downtime. For commercial operators handling cases across state lines, robust technical support is paramount.
“They’re able to log in remotely, so when we were first getting started we had a couple of hiccups, but we were not down for two or three days,” Best said. “They had a way to support us, which is really important, because, what are you gonna do once you have a body in there? You really need a way to make sure if you have any issues, you have solutions.”
She compared it with cremation. If you have a cremator go down, even if it’s a competitor, there’s someone not too far away who will help you in a pinch. When Best was starting there weren’t colleagues close enough to provide emergency support. Plus, as she eyes expansion, reliability is worth the price.
The Road Ahead: From Regional Footprint to National Brand
Operating strictly as a disposition facility rather than a traditional funeral home, Leaf and Water Cremation works with funeral homes across the Northeast to handle transportation and local permitting. As alkaline hydrolysis becomes more well known, the market continues to grow in fits and starts.
“The response we’ve gotten so far is showing that this is not an issue of demand, it’s an issue of awareness,” Best said. “The demographic for this is really pretty clear cut. They just need to learn about it and then they quickly make a decision.”
Looking toward 2027 and beyond, Best hopes to continue to increase cases, by focusing more closely on New York and Massachusetts, particular Boston. Long-term, her vision extends far beyond New England.
“Ideally, I’d like to see enough volume where it would justify us opening a second location, possibly in Maryland since it’s now legal there,” she said.
If she can continue to overlap coverage areas and grow smart, Best doesn’t see a need to ever stop growing. Because she doesn’t expect to have a funeral home, she also doesn’t expect to sell preneed, which she discovered is something of a real boon for her partners. Many of them, she said, have been able to sell preneed arrangements based on transportation and logistics they’ve provided for her. It’s also made them a little more open to offering aquamation as an option, a growth avenue that opened up much faster than Best expected. Rather than getting into preneed, though, Leaf and Water Cremation has an alternative approach: a final declaration of disposition.
“When we get calls from people saying, ‘We know this is what we want,’ we send them that form which says you want water cremation and you want us to do it,” Best said. “Then, if they send us a copy of it, we send them a certificate for what we call a pre-planning allowance that takes like $300 off whatever the cost will be at that point. It’s one of the ways we can keep track of people who want to make the arrangement with us.”
It’s an interesting approach, particularly as Best eyes Maryland, which also doesn’t have a strict requirement about being a funeral director to own and run a crematory (and now an alkaline hydrolysis facility). By being both a direct aquamator and a third-party provider Best believes she can grow without outside investment.
