The work aims to design functional food packaging that meets the actual needs of the elderly by analyzing the cognitive characteristics of functional food packaging among the elderly and using the analytic hierarchy process for comprehensive analysis and evaluation. Based on the needs of the elderly for functional food packaging design, the perceptual image vocabulary of the elderly for functional food packaging design was obtained, so as to build a comprehensive evaluation index system for packaging design. The weight of each index was calculated through the analytic hierarchy process. The importance ranking of key design elements was generated. And the elderly-oriented design direction of functional food packaging was defined. By constructing a design process based on the analytic hierarchy process, a functional food packaging design scheme for the elderly was completed and verified. The results showed that the scheme had high user satisfaction. Based on the analytic hierarchy process, the importance of user needs and the emotional tendencies of different needs can be effectively analyzed. According to the design process, the special needs of the elderly for functional food packaging can be analyzed, providing theoretical basis and practical reference for the design of functional food packaging for the elderly.