This article deals with the effects of firms' quality policies on export performance. We rely on the presence of quality management personnel to assess the level of commitment of firms on issues related to reliability and safety of products, using French administrative employee-firm-level data. We merge these data with French customs data providing the value and quantity of exports, for each firm, by product and destination. We show that firms with quality management employees have a better markets penetration and export higher volumes, especially on markets with high standards requirement (higher number of sanitary and phytosanitary or technical measures). Overall, our paper highlights the role of "quality investment" of agri-food firms in export performance, underlining that product quality is not limited to product differentiation perceived by final consumers. Product traceability and reliability is an essential factor in firms' competitiveness, especially in the perspective of the global value chains.