Cheese bounty hunters

Because counterfeits aren’t cheaper, since they are sold as the real deal. The chip is probably there for retailers so they don’t get scammed on the supply side. They can’t do a taste test on every cheese wheel they buy.

Because this is between wholesalers and their customers. Not the consumer in the supermarket.

parm reg is a DOP (“Denominazione di Origine Protetta” (in Italian) "Protected Designation of Origin”) product, which means when you buy it you're buying a guarantee that it was made in the traditional way, from traditional ingredients, in the area from which the tradition comes, using traditional methods. it's a way of preventing the industrialization and inevitable bastardization of foods that are considered part of a people's cultural heritage. counterfeits follow none of the DOP guidelines in order to minimize cost, and by the time it gets to the consumer who could verify whether the taste and other properties are actually as good as the legit DOP cheese the fraud is already complete.

Parmigiano is a protected name ans cheese in order to be called Parmigiano has to have certain characteristics (including abiding to maximum production volumes). People would buy because they trust the name.

It's very simple to just print the same QR on the cheese by just taking a picture of it. The barrier to counterfeit the cheese is considerably higher if the measure is harder to copy.