I can see this being used for discounting fresh foods to reduce waste. Not bulk produce, but packaged produce, meat, bread, prepared foods.
Stores discount these things as they approach the end of their shelf life, which generally means spending labor to individually tag items with a substitute barcode. But labor costs money, and clerks get busy, things get missed, food gets wasted, and margins get degraded.
Currently the barcode on something like a steak encodes the PLU and the weight. If it also encoded the pack date, then this discounting can take place automatically with no chance of missing anything.
Stores discount these things as they approach the end of their shelf life, which generally means spending labor to individually tag items with a substitute barcode. But labor costs money, and clerks get busy, things get missed, food gets wasted, and margins get degraded.
Currently the barcode on something like a steak encodes the PLU and the weight. If it also encoded the pack date, then this discounting can take place automatically with no chance of missing anything.