In the EU, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which constitute the majority of firms in the foodindustry, are fighting for survival as they face growing market competition from large firms (Knight, 2000). On theother hand, market opportunities for SMEs are connected to the evolution of consumer preferences toward foodquality, especially for traditional food products (O’Reilly and Haines, 2004). To profit from such opportunities SMEsneed to adapt their strategies, focussing on consumer requirements and improving their marketing activities. Thepurpose of this paper is to evaluate the marketing capabilities of SMEs producing traditional food products.Following the theoretical approach of Market Orientation (Kara et al., 2005; Jaworski and Kohli, 1993), our analysisis based on an assessment of the marketing management process (Kotler, 2004). The methodology refers to a surveymade by a questionnaire published on the web, and a sample of 371 firms coming from Belgium, Italy, Spain, theCzech Republic, and Hungary. Cluster analysis was applied to find different levels of the firms’ market orientation.Moreover we used an ordinal regression model to explain the relationships between the ability of firms to influencethe price and the variables affecting marketing management capability. The results revealed a certain lack ofappropriate skills in the analysed firms’ marketing management, confirming literature evidence concerning SMEs.Nevertheless, cluster analysis outlined a group of firms that represent 40% of the sample, and these have goodmarketing capabilities and are market oriented. In addition, the firms show poor ability to influence price.
