The problem is that different foods have widely differently ways of spoilage. Date packaged is meaningless unless you exactly know the ingredients of the produc

The problem is that different foods have widely differently ways of spoilage. Date packaged is meaningless unless you exactly know the ingredients of the product, its ratios, and somehow can determine when it will go bad. For something like coffee with one ingredient, it’s obvious. That’s why a lot of single-ingredient products like coffee or lettuce already have a packaged-on date.