CRB

CRB is an engineering, architecture, construction and consulting firm founded in 1984 and based in Kansas City, Missouri. It works almost entirely for two markets, life sciences and food and beverage, and tends to carry projects from process design through construction under one contract. The firm lists 16 offices and more than 1,700 employees. In Jefferson, Wisconsin, CRB was the engineering, procurement and construction contractor on Kikkoman Foods’ 240,000-square-foot soy sauce plant, which opened Sept. 18, 2026, as the company’s third U.S. production site. CRB brought J.P. Cullen in to self-perform concrete, masonry and steel erection on the job, and neither firm has disclosed a contract value.

Two industries, and essentially only two: life sciences and food and beverage. CRB describes itself as a full-service facility design, engineering, construction and consulting firm for those sectors, and the narrowness is the selling point. A pharmaceutical client is not explaining cleanroom classification to a generalist.

The service list reflects it. Process engineering and automation engineering come before anything about buildings. Lab planning and design is its own discipline. Robotics and intralogistics appear as a named service, as does Industry 4.0 consulting, which is not something most construction firms sell. Construction management, pre-construction and virtual design and construction round it out, tied together by ONEsolution, the firm’s integrated project delivery method.

The ENR rankings CRB cites locate it precisely within that niche: second among top design firms in manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, eighth in manufacturing, food and beverage, and thirty-sixth among the Top 100 Design-Build Firms. Strong in a narrow lane rather than mid-table across everything.

The office count has grown to twenty-one across the United States, Canada and Europe. The Kansas City office is at 1251 N.W. Briarcliff Parkway, Suite 500. European coverage runs through Basel, Switzerland and sites near Munich and Stuttgart, which matters for clients building on both sides of the Atlantic to the same process standard. The company remains privately held.

CRB also publishes rather than just builds. Its Horizons reports and insights work, including material on GLP-1 manufacturing, is aimed at clients planning capacity years ahead, and a seller-doer program means the people writing that analysis are the same ones who turn up on projects.