Several methods and tools have been developed in the context of sustainability assessment of food value chains (VC). These are frequently considered to lack a holistic approach and stakeholder involvement, and/or their application is deemed too complex and top down. This paper focuses on the design and implementation of the participatory Sustainability Hot Spot Analysis (pSHSA), an adapted version of the Sustainability Hot Spot Analysis (SHSA) developed by the Wuppertal Institute, which is used to identify priority areas for interventions along VCs. After outlining the main features of the pSHSA and its methodological approach, this brief summarises the experiences of the design and empirical application of the method in the case studies of the dairy and groundnut VCs in Zambia promoted by the Green Innovation Center under the ONEWORLD No Hunger initiative of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It concludes that the pSHSA offers a holistic and participatory tool for assessing food VCs, enabling the integration of local knowledge in a participatory fashion, and allowing for co-ownership of the re- search and co-creation of knowledge between VC stakeholders and researchers.