Built by the Best Award
The Controlled Environment Building Association‘s Built by the Best Award acknowledges expertise and innovation in constructing, renovating and/or modernizing controlled environment buildings across the world.
The award is open to project teams around the globe, in all regions comprised of Contractor / Design-Build companies / End-User companies that are active association members. Any of these parties can submit an application.
Buildings recognized with the Built by the Best Award seal represent the most innovative and complex facilities built around the globe according to the intricate, unique standards set forth by the controlled environment industry.
2025 Award Categories and Details
Congratulations to Sadel Group and Griffco Design/Build Inc., our 2025 Built by the Best awardees! Read more about our winners, finalists, and honorable mentions here.
This year’s award program offered a more streamlined application process and included awards recognizing the varied sizes of controlled environment buildings constructed worldwide.
- Controlled Environment, Cold Storage & Distribution Warehouses are specialized facilities designed to store and distribute perishable products that require temperature control to maintain quality and safety. These warehouses play a crucial role in supply chain logistics, particularly for industries like food, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. Submissions for this may be conventional, semi-automated, or fully automated warehouses.
- Processing/Manufacturing Facilities are industrial operations where raw materials are transformed into finished goods or intermediate products. These facilities are key to various supply chains and include a broad range of industries. Submissions for this category should emphasize use of controlled environment building features.
- Special Works Projects (Small Expansions, Tenant Improvements, Maintenance, Retrofits, and Renovations) are targeted and strategic improvements intended to deliver specific goals/outcomes/enhancements. Generally, these projects should be in the USD <$20MM range. Submissions for this category might include things like:
- Adding in blast freezing cells to an operating cold storage,
- Retrofitting in some automated features into an existing facility.
- Building a box-in-box facility.
Past Award Recipients
2025
Controlled Environment, Cold Storage & Distribution Warehouses category | Sadel Group, Magnavale Easton Project in Grantham, UK
Sadel Group won this category for its Magnavale Easton project in Grantham, UK, which has set a new benchmark in Europe for automated frozen storage combining speed, precision, flexibility, operational efficiency, and safety. This project has delivered the UK’s most advanced cold chain facility, a fully automated high-bay frozen warehouse at -18°C with 101,000 pallet capacity, including over-height positions. Full Details
CEBA Built By The Best Award – Special Works Projects category
Griffco Design/Build, Inc. won this category for its Scout Cold Logistics project in Lancaster, TX, where it met the considerable challenge of delivering an 88,115 square foot box-in-box cold storage buildout inside a 551,000 square foot warehouse to support a global meal kit brand. Read More
Finalists
- TI Cold for its Banks Cold Storage project in Commerce, GA (United States) – a scalable, efficient, sustainable, and resilient facility setting a benchmark for innovation and supply chain advancement.
- Greek Design | Build for its Ocean Kingdom project in Philadelphia, PA (United States) which expanded cold-storage capacity to enhances Ocean Kingdom’s seafood distribution with direct access to I-95 and Philadelphia International Airport.
Honorable Mentions:
- Carroll Daniel Construction Company for its Eskimo Cold Storage Project in Gainesville, GA (United States)
- Cold Solutions Services East Africa Limited for its facility in Ruiru, Kiambu County (Kenya)
- Coldbox Builders Inc. for its Arla Foods/Condor Properties project in Vaughan, ON (Canada)
- Consolidated Construction Co., Inc. for its Midwest Refrigerated Services project in Belvidere, IL (United States)
- Fisher Construction Group for their Simplot Freezer project in Rainier, WA (United States)
- Greek Design | Build for their RL Cold & BGO project in Mount Laurel, NJ (United States)
- Primus Builders, Inc. for their Arcadia Cold Storage & Logistics/Saxum Real Estate project in Jacksonville, FL (United States)
2024
$35MM Category: Stellar | Americold, Russellville, Arkansas, United States
Onstage left to right: Brian Lynch, Executive Director CEBA & EVP Business Development GCCA; James Rogers, VP Business Development, GCCA; Sam Tippmann, Chairman CEBA & Founder/CEO TI Cold; Wyatt Payne Senior Vice President, Food Logistics Division, Stellar; Daryl Wolfenbarger, Project Manager, Americold; Kimberly Stanton, Project Manager, Stellar; Nathan Kendall, Project Manager, Stellar; Justin Eason, Operations Manager, Stellar; and Sara Stickler, President and CEO, GCCA. To learn more about the project, click HERE
Under $35MM Category | Maple Reinders Constructors Ltd. | Dot Foods Canada, Inc., Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada
Onstage left to right: Brian Lynch, Executive Director CEBA & EVP Business Development GCCA; James Rogers, VP Business Development, GCCA; Sam Tippmann, Chairman CEBA & Founder/CEO TI Cold; Joseph Sabourin, Project Director, Food and Beverage, Maple Reinders; Sara Stickler, President and CEO, GCCA. To learn more about the project, click HERE
2024 Finalists
- Fisher Construction Group | Agile Cold Storage, Gainesville, Georgia, United States
- Maple Reinders Constructors Ltd. | Dot Foods Canada, Inc., Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada
- Primus | RL Cold, Ridgeville, South Carolina, United States
- Stellar | Americold, Russellville, Arkansas, United States
2024 Honorable Mentions
- Cubic33 Colombia S.A.S.| Emergent Cold, Talcahuano, Chile
- Evans General Contractors | RL Cold, Wilmington, NC, United States
- SINA | Congebec Inc., Mascouche, QC, Canada
2024 Judges
- Burnie Taylor, Chief Development & Solutions Officer – Arcadia Cold Storage & Logistics
- Jim Romine, VP, Engineering Design & Development – Lineage Logistics
- Rob Adams, Executive Vice President – Ti Cold
- Tim Nguyen, President – SubZero Constructors Inc.
Submission Video Examples
Fisher Construction Group | NewCold, Lebanon, IN, United State
Ti Cold | CORE X COMPLETE, Sturbridge, MA, United State
Questions?
If you have questions about CEBA’s Built by the Best award or submission process, please contact Amanda Gaster at agaster@theceba.org.