The file is the food trade matrix between 1986 and 2013 using data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (http://faostat.fao.org). It is constructed and analyzed in our paper “Impact of globalization on the resilience and sustainability of natural resources” under review in Nature Sustainability. Pangaea is Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science, so I think it is the most suitable archive.I use software Mathematica to construct and analyze the file. The format of this file is “.mx”, Wolfram Language serialized package format (http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/format/MX.html). It can be opened by Mathematica.