Over the last decade, the value chain (VC) has established itself as one of the main paradigms in development thinking and practice. This is why the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has launched this new set of handbooks on sustainable food value chain development (SFVCD), and this is the first in the set. These handbooks aim to provide practical guidance on SFVCD by facilitating the spread of innovative solutions emerging from the field to a target audience of policy-makers, project designers and field practitioners. This first handbook provides a solid conceptual foundation on which to build the subsequent handbooks. It (1) clearly defines the concept of a sustainable food value chain; (2) presents and discusses a development paradigm that integrates the multidimensional concepts of sustainability and value added; (3) presents, discusses and illustrates ten principles that underlie SFVCD; and (4) discusses the potential and limitations of using the VC concept in food systems development.