Two things I miss from the UK (there aren't that many) are fresh cream, and a decent choice of European cheeses.

I don't know about Bucharest, but in Brasov (let alone my local town) the two main supermarkets (Real and Carrefour) stock vast quantities of industrially-churned out cascaval, ditto telemea, a few bland German cheeses and... that's about it.

In the village my neighbours, and the shepherds up the curmatura produce five options: urda, telemea, cas, cas afumat, and brânza which is either wrapped in spruce bark or in a sheep's bladder. In the Sunday market I've found telemea like a good Greek feta, and cas afumat like smoked applewood cheddar. But even so, it's a poor choice, compared to what I'm used to in urban UK.

Big question - not about importing French and English cheese (if only) but about local cheesemakers learning new techniques to produce some new Romanian artisan cheeses. Key factor - would there be a market for them? Yes, among the expat community perhaps, but would the majority of Romanians like something new? Even if there were a market among good restauranteurs that would be a start.

I'd value your opinions.  

Hi Abbs, we like you really miss English cheese. Whenever we can, we get someone to bring us “Mature Cathedral Cheddar Cheese” or when I drive back to Romania there is plenty in the back of the car along with many other goodies (Branston, Colman’s Mustard, Pork Pies, Treacle, Custard, Malt Vinegar, many curry sources, Chinese sources, Gravy, Stuffing and of course Bake Beans). You can get some things here at 2-3 times the UK supermarket price.

People are slow to change and how much would you have to give away before they developed the taste. Even if they like it, would they buy it, or expect you as a friend to give it to them. It is difficult. I have thought about importing many times but transportation is usually the problem, both reliability and cost.

Whenever I try to either export or import the end result is that I make a loss!!

Good Luck
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In my car it's brown basmati rice, coconut milk and Puy lentils.And bacon... have you found decent bacon?

The cheese thing is an early idea - the village is going to be unravelled unless they can earn more income without leaving the country. The young go away to earn some decent money, and the village loses out. Not to mention the EU [spit] agri policy which has destroyed most of Europe's local dairy systems and turned it into agri-industry. Cheese is an obvious gap in the market in Romania: there's good milk here, it's organic by default; cheese has become one of the chic artisan products in Europe, so the thought is to bring over a successful cheesemaker to show people a few ways to vary the offer, as I believe they say in marketing. Long slow process to winkle out potential entrepreneurs when they have neither time or money to start businesses. There are lots of skills, smart brains and talent, however.  

You want a Romanian to eat cheese thats not branza lol you have more chance of getting 6 numbers on the lottery.Romanian people hate change and they are just the same with food. I find Romanian food Bland or just dont look right (chicken feet in jello yum yum ) And of course no meal complete without a box of salt in every dish. Perhaps in the capital cities they may try something but Romania is so strong in tradition that us outsiders trying to INTRODUCE new things just dont work. I love the Romanian people but they would do well to stop having tunnel vision in every aspect of life.  

Gorjit you may well be right, but my neighbours are at least intrigued by the food I cook for them, even if they don't then cook it for themselves. Maybe if the Romanian equivalent of David Beckham or Beyonce championed it, then the kids would go for it. So that's 20 years down the line...  

It will probably happen eventually, it was the same when I went to Portugal. At first finding a decent cheddar was impossible but now you can get it easily. Let's hope the Romanians start to do so as well. The Real I went to in Galati just had tons and tons of Cascaval. Although you're right they do have some French and German too.
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At least I have now got access to fresh cream - my neighbour, after some explaining, is happy to skim the cream off the milk from her house cow, for 8 lei per litre. When I had the conversation with half a dozen staff intrigued by a request for fresh cream in Real, all I got was puzzled looks. Why would one want such a thing?

And I now have lots of cheese-making recipes so am determined to start making my own. Ditto yoghurt. Maybe butter later - try finding salted butter here! Slightly salted Lurpak easy-spread is about it.