The INFS offers academic courses in Nutrition and Food Science. At present the Institute runs the following courses:

(i) Four years B.S.(Hons.),
(ii)One year M.S
(iii) M.Phil and
(iv) Ph.D.

Apart from the academic programs the activities of INFS include basic and applied research in different aspects and fields of nutrition and food science including nutrition survey and surveillance, laboratory experiments, research in nutrition, food sciences, microbiology, health sciences, food and nutrition policy, evaluation of interventions, technical advisory services, and training. Since its establisment the INFS has conducted most of the nutrition research and training in Bangladesh. It also played an important role in nutrition advocacy drawing attention to the urgency of the nutritional problems and recommending means to address it. The INFS will continue its academic and training programs in various fields of nutrition and food science for development of trained manpower, field level activities in the assessment, experiments in the laboratory, monitoring and analysis of nutritional problems, and in the evaluation of the intervention programs.

The INFS has a group of highly qualified and experienced faculty members. They are from diverse disciplines, such as Nutritional Biochemistry, Food Science, Microbiology, Clinical Nutrition, Applied Nutrition, Community Nutrition, Social Nutrition, Nutrition Education, Nutrition Planning, Biostatistics, Bioengineering, and Instrumentation.

The Institute has its own library, having 10000 books, journals and periodicals, in the second floor of its building. Most of the books are on Nutrition, Biochemistry, Medical science, Food science, Microbiology, Economics, Home economics, Biostatistics, Sociology, Computer, Instrumentation and others. The teachers, the researchers and the students of the Institute can borrow books from the library; besides, books can be studied in the library.