Residential Kitchen

In a dwelling unit (residential), GFCI protection is only required for kitchen receptacles that serve the countertop surfaces. There's no requirement to GFCI protect receptacles that serve a refrigerator. Unless the fridge is plugged into a countertop receptacle.

National Electrical Code 2014

Chapter 2 Wiring and Protection

Article 210 Branch Circuits

I. General Provisions

210.8 Ground-Fault Circuit-Interrupter Protection for Personnel. Ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection for personnel shall be provided as required in 210.8(A) through (C). The ground-fault circuit-interrupter shall be installed in a readily accessible location.

(A) Dwelling Units. All 125-volt, single-phase, 15- and 20-ampere receptacles installed in the locations specified in 210.8(A)(1) through (10) shall have ground-fault circuit interrupter protection for personnel.

(6) Kitchens— where the receptacles are installed to serve the countertop surfaces.

Garages, Unfinished Basement, and Other Locations

If the refrigerator is in a garage, boathouse, or unfinished basement. All the receptacles are required to be GFCI protected, so the fridge will have to be plugged into a GFCI protected receptacle.

Why does the fridge trip the GFCI?

Any inductive load when switched off, can produce electromagnetic interference (EMI). This interference can, and often does, trip GFCI devices. Most vapor compression refrigerators have a few inductive loads, any of which could cause the trip.

Is there anything that can be done?

There are devices called snubbers that can be used to reduce, or eliminate the effects of EMI. Installing one between the fridge and the GFCI device, could prevent nuisance trips. The best solution though, is to connect the fridge to a non-GFCI protected circuit.

If that's all it takes, why isn't there already one built in?

While most (all) manufacturers are aware that refrigerators can cause nuisance tripping of GFCI devices, most (none) seem willing to provide a solution. It would be complete speculation for me to try and tell you why they don't care, so of course I'll go through a few possibilities.

• Cost.
  Plain and simple, it costs money to implement a solution.
• Warranties and Operating Conditions.
  Most refrigerators are designed to operate in a kitchen. Running them in dusty, dirty garages and basements could lead to more warranty covered repairs.

The part where you said they all trip simultaneously and the fact they're all back-to-back makes me suspect of a bad buss bar. Other than that there should not be any correlation between any of these isolated circuits. It's plausible, but highly unlikely the manufacturer shipped out a bad case of breakers and the installer just happened to install them back-to-back but realistically not heard of. Just replace or as Trevor mentioned in his comment swap the known good AFCI with known bad ones and check buss bar for burnt marks. See what happens.