Thailand is one of the world's five and Asia's only consistent net exporter of food but it still needs a concerted effort by business and government to develop the food industry. Recently, a survey to investigate the role of academic institutions has been carried out to identify their capacity to serve the food industry. Each has been clearly identified in terms of competence in specialized fields of expertise based on the location. They agreed to have a coordinating agency to oversee food industry needs for training and education, research and development, academic services, analysis and inspection of food products, technology transfer and construction of databases on food science and technology. However, various obstacles in the link of the cooperation between the public and private sectors should be removed to acquire up-to-date information about trends in the global food industry and to identify higher value-added goods with market potential along with upgrading employee skills.