Cold storage demand rises as Americold occupancy hits 70%

The news

Americold Realty Trust filled 70% of the pallet capacity across its 194 same-store warehouses in the third quarter, up from 65.4% a year earlier. Stored pallets rose 6.5%, while available capacity shrank slightly.

Throughput at the warehouses rose 4.1% to 8.2 million pallets.
CEO Rob Chambers credited the quarter to Americold’s own execution and “continued industry stabilization.”

The details

Stored inventory grew faster than storage revenue because much of the additional volume went into space customers were already paying for. Americold's economic occupancy, which counts contracted space even when it is empty, rose to 78.5% from 76.4%.

The gap between paid-for and physically occupied space narrowed to 8.5 percentage points from 11.0 points.
Same-store storage revenue rose 3.6% to $221.8 million.
Storage revenue per pallet paid for rose 1.5% to $62.95. Revenue per physically stored pallet fell 2.7% to $70.53.

Warehouse services, which include handling goods, contributed more to revenue growth. Same-store services revenue rose 7.1% to $324.5 million. Its $21.6 million increase was nearly three times the gain in storage revenue.

Services revenue per pallet handled rose 2.9% to $39.37.
Americold's profit margin on services increased to 15.9% from 13.6%.
Same-store throughput rose 1.8% in the first nine months of the year, meaning third-quarter growth outpaced the first-half average.

Americold is also shrinking its overall network as it winds down some warehouses and puts others up for sale. Across its full portfolio, pallet capacity was 6.8% lower than a year earlier. Physical occupancy rose to 68.1% from 61.9%, partly because there was less space to fill.

Americold is winding down four sites and has three more up for sale.
It operates 208 warehouses worldwide, with about 1.2 billion refrigerated cubic feet of capacity.

What peers are doing

Lineage is also idling warehouses but says the cold storage market remains about 10% overbuilt. The company idled 10 facilities in 2025 and five more by early August 2026.

Its warehouses were 75.8% occupied in the second quarter, up 0.9 percentage points from a year earlier. CEO Greg Lehmkuhl called the increase a sign “that the industry is stabilizing,” even as Lineage's throughput fell 1.8%.