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**Maximum hygiene levels have always been a prime objective at Zerica and for this reason the Italian company has long abandoned traditional cooling systems such as cooling tanks in all of its POU products.

**These cheaper systems are prone to liquid stagnation issues and the formation of sediment and biofilm on the walls in contact with the drink.

Zerica systems use an innovative direct chill solution, which cools the drinking liquid inside a tube of maximum diameter 20mm by running it beside a second tube carrying the refrigerant gas, and allows the units to be connected directly to the main drinks supply point.

Using this approach, the drink is chilled as it is moves through the system and very little of it actually remains inside the cooler at any point in time: there is no storage tank and the drink is cooled as it is dispensed.

Direct chill systems bring advantages in terms of hygiene but have limited supply capacity. In practice, a cooler with direct chill is able to provide only 4-5 glasses of cold water when in continuous use. It then requires a working time of 25-35 minutes before being able to dispense chilled water again.

Zerica is the only company to have overcome the supply capacity limitation by perfecting direct chill and producing its own superior version: “High Performance Direct Chill” (HPDC). HPDC optimises efficiency by increasing the contact surface area between the liquid and refrigerant gas from 45% (as found in traditional direct chill systems) to 100%.

Zerica's High Performance Direct Chill units are unique in the market in being able to produce chilled water in just 3 minutes.

Still with hygiene in mind, Zerica is the only company to use pipes made of the most expensive food contact certified copper available rather than stainless steel. Apart from maximising thermal exchange efficiency, copper also has an antibacterial effect as recently documented by studies and research carried out at top international institutes.

This special copper blocks the formation of bacterial colonies and it is actually the most efficient material in restricting the growth of micro-organisms such as Legionella bacteria as well as other dangerous bacteria.