OK, let's pretend you don't care about helping the environment and all that tree hugger stuff. You've got a great food product that needs packaging and you want people to see it, look at it, and ultimately buy it. What kind of packaging are you going to use? For the sake of this post, let's look at printed corrugated boxes and printed stand up bags.
Printed corrugated cartons are made with different layers of paper. The type of paper and the number of layers of paper affect the strength of the carton. In order to print a box, a sheet of corrugated is surface printed, meaning the ink is applied directly to the top layer of paper, it dries then it's made into a box. There are other ways but for sake of argument this is one of the main ways. Here is a good example of a carton printed 3-4 colors
I can hear all the naysayers right now, "I've seen fancier cartons than he is showing us." True, like the carton below, but do you realize this is a printed liner that is actually glued to the carton? This lamination drastically affects if the carton can be recycled at all due to the glue and paper involved.
Then there is the custom printed stand up pouch. Strong, durable, puncture resistant with the ability to stand effectively on a store shelf with plenty of room on the front and back to describe your product and tell the world why it's so great. Price for something like this? $.15 to $20 cents with a minimum run of 5000 pieces.