To accelerate the transition towards inclusive, ecological, just and economically viable food systems, insights into appropriate governance models and principles are needed. This article aims to understand how food system governance is linked to and can contribute to sustainability. A review of 34 articles addressed food system governance, sustainability, current barriers and potential solutions. Some authors propose new, participatory, collaborative and democratic governance models to achieve a sustainable food system transition. Other authors consider a lack of integrated policies across sectors and siloed governance major barriers to holistic sustainability agendas and food system approaches. Three main elements of governance emerged from the reviewed literature: (i) interactions between actors, (ii) control and power balances, and (iii) (in)formal rules. Our analysis provides a fourth element: the orchestration of (multiple) food systems and policies. These four elements are integrated into a novel conceptual framework for consistently researching food systems governance for sustainability. The latter is now defined as ‘the continuous process of orchestration of policies and (multiple) food systems consisting of diverse interacting actors, respecting (in)formal rules and striving to provide food for all, in equitable and environmentally-friendly ways, at any time and in any context’.