The mushroom coffin arrives in Britain
In February 2025, Poetic Endings hosted the official UK launch of the Loop Living Cocoon™, a coffin grown from mycelium and hemp rather than manufactured from conventional materials.
For one day, the floral studio at Poetic Endings stopped looking like a room in Forest Hill and became something closer to a forest floor.
Moss crept across the ground. Snowdrops appeared between logs and ferns. Mushrooms grew among the branches. And in the middle of it all sat a coffin that had itself been grown from fungi.
We were hosting the official UK launch of the Loop Living Cocoon™, and Poetic Endings had become the first UK funeral director to offer it.
I had been waiting for funeral innovation that felt genuinely new rather than simply a different finish applied to a familiar object. The Cocoon did.
A coffin made by biology
The Living Cocoon™ is grown from mycelium, the thread-like network produced by fungi, combined with upcycled hemp fibres.
The mycelium grows through the fibres and binds them together into the final form of the coffin.
The result looks and feels completely different from a conventional wooden or veneered coffin. Its pale surface has its own irregular texture. The handles are made from jute. Inside is a bed of moss.
It doesn't try to disguise what it is. That is part of its beauty.
It feels unlike any conventional coffin
Calling it a “mushroom coffin” makes it sound rather stranger than it feels when you actually stand beside one.
It is soft in colour, sculptural in shape and extraordinarily tactile. There is nothing rustic or novelty-like about it.
Surrounded by moss, ferns and snowdrops, the material suddenly made complete sense.
Katie turned the studio into the landscape the Cocoon belonged in
Katie Musgrave of Unruly Flowers created the installation around the coffin using moss, snowdrops, ferns, branches, logs and mushrooms. Instead of displaying the Cocoon as a product, she gave people a way to experience the idea behind it.
“This is the future of funerals, the most exciting innovation in years.”
Louise Winter · Poetic EndingsBringing the Living Cocoon to the UK
Loop Biotech joined us in Forest Hill for the launch, alongside funeral professionals and people interested in how funeral choices might change.
The response was immediate. The Cocoon is an object people want to touch. Its texture, weight and material make much more sense in person than they do when described on a screen.
For Poetic Endings, that matters. We are interested in new funeral choices when they combine a strong idea with thoughtful design and when they can work in the reality of arranging a funeral.
This did both.
An unusual material, but a practical coffin
The Living Cocoon isn't only an experimental design object. It is made for use in ordinary funeral arrangements.
It can be used for natural burial, traditional burial and cremation.
For the full details about sizes, carrying, interiors, certification and current availability, we've created a separate guide to the Living Cocoon.
The time Loop says it takes to grow a Living Cocoon at its facility in Delft.
Combined with upcycled hemp fibres to form the structure of the coffin.
Loop's approximate biodegradation figure for the coffin material under ideal soil conditions.
Current Poetic Endings price for the Loop Living Cocoon™.
From launch installation to real funerals
We were delighted to become the first UK funeral director to offer the Loop range, but what mattered more was whether people arranging funerals would actually choose it.
They did.
The Living Cocoon is now part of the coffin collection we offer at Poetic Endings, alongside willow, cardboard, wool, timber and other natural materials.
The launch installation was temporary. Katie carefully planted and reused the living material afterwards. But the idea behind it has stayed with us: that the objects used in funerals can be beautiful, practical and designed with what happens after the funeral in mind.
