Thai food: Winning hearts and minds
The Food Chain
BBC
4.7 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 18 June 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Love Thai food? It might be thanks to a two-decade long policy on the part of the government of Thailand to promote its food culture abroad, with the express aim of increasing trade and tourism.
Ruth Alexander explores how food can be used as a foreign policy tool, influencing not just world leaders but seeking to win the hearts and minds of the public.
Academic Sam Chapple-Sokol at George Washington University in the US explains why gastro-diplomacy is such an effective tool for soft power.
Jan Wisansing, tourism policy consultant in Bangkok, explains the impact of the Global Thai scheme on international tourism to the country.
Ruth speaks to the owners of LumLum Thai restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark, who have recently received a Thai SELECT award, an official endorsement from the government of Thailand.
And writer and historian Ali Domrongchai in the US talks about the impact of this approach on her own family’s Thai restaurant in Florida.
Producer: Beatrice Pickup. Reporter: Gideon Long in Bangkok
(Image: A plate of pad thai, said to be Thailand’s national dish, with Thailand’s flag in the background. Credit: Getty Images/BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm no longer ravenous. I'll no longer eat until I fall asleep. The Hunger Game, |
| 0:05.9 | a new five-part series exploring the meteoric rise of weight loss drugs. It's been an incredible |
| 0:10.7 | story with these drugs. The uptake, the amount of product that's been sold, the amounts of money |
| 0:15.1 | is cost. What the drugs do, how they work, and the knock-on effects of their widespread use. |
| 0:20.5 | We'll be sitting here in three years' time going, oh, it caused problems that we're now going |
| 0:25.3 | to have to fix. |
| 0:26.2 | The Hunger Game with me, Professor Gilesio. |
| 0:29.1 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.5 | It's not our first time to Thailand, so our fourth or fifth time. |
| 0:38.6 | But yes, we go to Thai restaurants in Munich, and we also cook Thai food at home. |
| 0:43.4 | We love it, yes. |
| 0:46.6 | If you've tried Thai food and felt inspired to book a trip to the country, |
| 0:51.3 | did you know that might be because of a carefully crafted government |
| 0:54.8 | strategy? This is the food chain from the BBC World Service with me, Ruth Alexander, |
| 1:00.9 | and this week we're telling the story of how one country set out to win hearts and minds |
| 1:06.1 | by filling stomachs. Thailand is a leading global destination, and that is almost engineered. |
| 1:12.0 | That's almost by design. |
| 1:13.5 | A campaign to attract visitors, boost the economy, and better its place on the world stage. |
| 1:19.6 | You think of Thailand, you absolutely think of food now. |
| 1:23.4 | But at what cost to restaurant owners? |
| 1:25.7 | They are no longer the experts of their own cuisine |
| 1:28.9 | and the experts instead are the consumers and customers that eat it. |
... |
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