Americold facility (Photo: Americold) Cold storage facility owner and operator Americold Realty Trust ( NYSE: COLD ) announced it has resumed construction on its New Zealand expansion project. Competition in Australia's rapidly evolving cold storage sector looks set to get frosty with US giant Americold flagging large expansion plans.Americold's newly appointed managing director in Australia, Richard Winnall, said the company's warehousing business in Australia and New Zealand had been "capacity stagnant", or dormant, for the past 10 years.But the sleeping, New York-listed, giant REIT was awakening with an expansion strategy playing out in the US this year, where it has acquired 24 facilities over the three major transactions. Americold entered into a forward sale agreement for an additional $17 million issuance between now and July 2021. Based in Richmond, VA, Todd is the finance editor at FreightWaves. Americold owns and operates 179 temperature-controlled warehouses in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Argentina. That's pushing up prices on freezing," he said, and making expansion an attractive proposition.Before the Oxford deal in December last year, private equity-backed Emergent scooped up sites in Allansford, Truganina and Tullamarine owned by another private player, Montague Cold Storage.When it first arrived in Australia early last year it acquired a foothold of 15 warehouses by taking over another of the country's oldest and biggest privately run operators, Swire Cold Storage, heralding the end of an era where the sector was controlled by family-run businesses.European cold storage specialist NewCold also entered the market in 2017 when it completed two mega-size cold storage warehouses in Truganina, in Melbourne's west.In second quarter results filed with the New York exchange on Thursday, Americold said it completed a land purchase in Sydney for US$45.5 million after paying a US$4.4 million deposit in 2018.The company reported an 11 per cent increase in total revenue for the quarter to US$438.5 million, of which US$84.4 million was generated out its Australian business.Refrigerated warehouses typically provide storage and logistics handling for food and grocery companies like Coles, Woolies, Peters Ice Cream, McCains, Pizza Hut, Dominoes and Collins Foods.Property Editor at The Age and BusinessDay journalist for Fairfax's theage.com.au, smh.com.au, watoday.com.au and brisbanetimes.com.au.Stack and rack: Americold has three sites across Australia’s eastern seaboard and one in Perth.Americold and another US based giant, Emergent Cold, are going head-to-head in Australia. Our inspiration comes from you, the producers, retailers, and food service providers we partner with daily to bring your passion to market.Our commitment is far reaching and full of purpose; we support everyone from local artisans to regional grocery stores, and from national food producers to international food and beverage organisations across Australia and New Zealand. Americold’s blast freezing process is available at many of our facilities.We have a scheduled, temperature-controlled national LTL network that drives right by your facilities – and those of your customers. The company’s net debt-to-core earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), including anticipated contributions from acquisitions, was 4.1x.In the second quarter, the company issued 3.1 million new shares of common stock under its at-the-market (ATM) equity program. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Americold owns and operates over 160 temperature-controlled warehouses, with more than 1 billion cubic feet of storage, in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina, with a Joint Venture in China. "An expansion strategy will look like building new capacity in Australia and New Zealand and/or potential acquisitions, although there is no immediate acquisition target," he said.Americold has three sites across Australia's eastern seaboard and one in Perth, which house six large freezer and chiller facilities.