Despite high industrial and scientific interest, a comprehensive review of the surface science of food powders is still lacking. There is a real gap between scientific concerns of the field and accessible reviews on the subject. The global description of the surface of food powders by multi-scale microscopy approaches seems to be essential in order to investigate their complexity and take advantage of their high innovation potential. Links between these techniques and the interest to develop a multi-analytical approach to investigate scientific questions dealing with powder functionality are discussed in the second part of the review. Finally, some techniques used in others fields and showing promising possibilities in the food powder domain will be highlighted.