"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.

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Americold has three sites across Australia's eastern seaboard and one in Perth, which house six large freezer and chiller facilities. Its Melbourne facility in Laverton North is "one of the largest operations in the world", Mr Winnall said.

Americold's 2010 acquisition of VersaCold turned it into the world's largest publicly traded temperature-controlled warehousing and distribution REIT.

The group's expansion will set the stage for an ongoing battle in Australia's $5 billion cold storage sector, where another American giant, Emergent Cold, has been making aggressive acquisitions, giving it a dominant position.

Emergent's deal with the 44-year-old Oxford Cold Storage, announced in May, is being examined by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), a signal the influx of large players taking significant market share has caught the eye of regulators.

Mr Winnall said the industry would be closely watching the ACCC's decision, expected over the next couple of months.

In Australia there was growing demand for freezer rather than chiller space.

"Freezer demand is very high and there is very high utilisation rate right around the country, less so on the chiller space. 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.

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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.