Great coffee doesn't come from a brand per se. It comes from people committed to quality. The best roasters travel to source and work with farmers and buy microlots. When you purchase the coffee you get the name of the farmer and the lot.

When this level of detail is given on the growing end, most times the roaster would not like to waste their money and therefore present their coffee at peak quality. This is done by selling whole bean roasted fresh. Having someone work their tail off for a season in the heat only to grind the coffee and let it go stale is fairly goofy.

As far as the fridge goes, consensus in the coffee geekery community is that you can freeze whole bean in double barrier containers in the freezer, but once it's out it's out. Don't put it back in. Keeping ground coffee cold won't do anything. It's already done.