Why is my pet rat afraid to step on its new bedding?

We recently bought a pet rat. He is about 4 weeks old. Up until now we were using corn husk bedding in his cage.
This morning, we cleaned out his cage and replaced the bedding for “Clean & Cozy” bedding from Kaytee. (I believe its paper bedding). Now the rat refuses to step on it, it goes to great lengths to find alternate paths in order to not step on the bedding. We even tried putting his food in the middle of the cage to force it to go there but he chose to not eat instead. Why is it doing this?