Abstract: The invention encompasses packaging and cooling methods and systems designed to improve cooling efficiencies, reduce damage to the contents of containers, and increase product packing density. A system of the present invention incorporates baskets loaded into trays and trays loaded in preferred configurations on a pallet. The trays are loaded with baskets arranged in the tray so that ventilation slots and/or channels of the baskets are aligned with tray ventilation openings. Nine (9) trays are loaded onto a standard pallet in a 3 by 3 configuration. Additionally, the trays are arranged so that the tray ventilation openings are in alignment with ventilation openings of other trays of the same layer. This 3 by 3 layer of trays comprises a so-called “nine-down” configuration. As will be discussed below, his configuration has some surprising cooling advantageous standard packaging configurations.