Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the market orientation and the marketing management capabilities of SMEs that produce traditional food products, by identifying their critical points in marketing activities. Design/methodology/approach - The theoretical framework of this analysis relates to market orientation approach. Marketing management capability was evaluated through a questionnaire using proxies to study the different stages of marketing management. The survey involved 150 firms of which 118 are SMEs producing traditional food products, located in Hungary, Belgium, and Italy. The data were collected by a self-administered internet survey and were analysed using multivariate analyses. Findings - Cluster analysis resulted in four clusters with different marketing management capabilities. Most of the SMEs in the sample lack marketing management capabilities, even if a considerable proportion of the firms considered report good marketing capabilities that lead to a market orientation. The weakest step of market orientation is the dissemination of generated intelligence. Indeed, SMEs lack marketing organisational activities, namely in planning and implementation of marketing strategy. Moreover, SMEs with better performance check that their objectives are reached but do not compare their strategy with that of competitors. Hence, they could miss opportunities to keep up to date with market development. Originality/value - This paper provides interesting insights. about the marketing capabilities of food SMEs, which usually find it difficult to stay in the market beside large firms. Moreover, there are not many contributions in the literature about the application of market orientation approach on traditional food producers

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Paper prepared for presentation at the 149th EAAE Seminar 'Structural change in agri-food chains: new relations between farm sector, food industry and retail sector'