The date by which surviving larvae in processed
food will hatch. (Remember, the
government regulations set thresholds below which insects and other contaminants are permitted in the
food you eat in order to protect corporate profits.)
Processed
food manufacturers presumably need know the hatch-date for their product, so they can set the "sell" by" or "use by" date at an earlier point in time. It may be viewed as better for business for you and your family to eat the
food with bugs in it before they hatch so you don'
t know how contaminated it is.
Hatch-dates are not important for foods that are
wet, pulverized, get embalmed in salt, or get sterilized by processing. You wouldn't recognize the contaminants, or at least they will not be crawling.
Hatch dates may be more critical for nuts and grains with a low degree of processing, such as oatmeal, chocolate covered nuts, etc.
All
Grandma had to share with the kiddies were boxes of unopened fancy chocolate nuts, several years old. Each
chocolate had a telltale pinhole showing where a newborn
worm had escaped from its sweet lair, shortly after the hatch-date.