Innovation is the top topic of the public agenda. Policy makers and business representatives are looking for innovative solutions to modern issues. Therefore, the research question is whether Romania’s agrofood sector has strong conditions in order to run and implement eco-innovation. The main objectives of the paper are to emphasize the real conditions for eco-innovation in Romanian agrofood sector. The descriptive analysis proves that Romania’s agrofood sector needs innovation and this may be a strategic approach for sustainable development of agrofood companies. On one hand, the findings proves that the Romanian small enterprises are quite vulnerable to market exchanges as they need further skills in order to face them. On the other hand, the small enterprises are not ready to implement digital activities, neither eco-innovation in their operations, even if this objective is on the short list of public policies agenda.

The global food value chain encompasses a component of particular importance: the milk market. What makes this component unique is that fact that milk represents an essential part in almost any diet, a key factor for the production of dairy products. The main objective undertook in this research paper was to quantify the pressure put on the global milk chain by Romania. The results highlight that the milk imported quantities represent, on average, 3.5% of the Romanian production of milk in the 2010-2019 period. Romania is a small player in terms of the pressure put on the global milk value chain, from the perspective of milk demand. The loss caused on the Romanian milk chain by the trade deficit can be ameliorated by increasing the national production capacities.

International agri-food markets are staples of food security that ensure nutrition for countries all around the world through trading. In such a globalized economic climate, international agri-food flows shift in patterns rapidly and are subject to numerous risks and challenges such as climate change issues, food insecurity, supply chain disruptions caused by pandemics and many other challenges. Agriculture and food trading have been under a lot of pressure caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, by the constantly growing pressure for mitigating climate change issues, while still ensuring food security globally. On top of that, there is also the commitment of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in time, as specified in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, plus the upcoming commitment in the EU for implementing the Green Deal, with direct impact on agriculture and international agri-food trading activities. In this context, the aim of this research was to explore the scientific interest for the topic of food trading with a focus on the 2019-2021 period and highlight emergent trends through quantitative mapping of the keywords associated to the papers published in this field and indexed in the Web of Science. Results show a scientific interest shift from a research area specific to the economic competitiveness of food trading to an area specific to environmental and global food supply concerns.