Exports or public procurement to resist in the post-pandemic world? How e-commerce appeases this food and beverage SMEs ambidextrous dilemma

Purpose – Food and beverage (F&B) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must diversify their marketsand obtain predictable sources of revenues to withstand difficult and volatile periods such as the postpandemic geopolitical scenario, recently burdened by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. On the other hand,another strand of the literature suggests that public procurement could be considered a great source of income,enabling solid contracts, revenues and cash-flow stability. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the role ofpublic procurement, the adoption of e-commerce platforms and their interactions in affecting the exportingperformances of SMEs operating in the F&B sector.Design/methodology/approach – The study retrieves data from 2,186 Italian F&B manufacturing SMEsrelying on Marg o by Cribis database. Therefore, it conducts a structured equational model (SEM) to test thedeveloped hypotheses empirically.Findings – The findings reveal that digital selling platforms positively affect exports, whereas public procurementnegatively affects F&B SMEs exports. Nonetheless, findings underline that the interaction between publicprocurement and the adoption of digital selling platforms dampens public procurement’s negative effects on exports.Originality/value – This study brings an original contribution to the F&B literature by conducting empiricalresearch on an extensive sample of firms from one of the most influential countries in the F&B vertical, Italy,with officially registered data. More importantly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study pioneers the investigation of the relationship between public procurement and e-commerce platforms in affecting F&B SMEs’ export performances.