This report examines financial investment in protein production in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that in order to understand the changing place of protein in sub-Saharan African diets and food systems, it is important to investigate what motivates different financial actors to invest in new food products, markets and value chains – or to withhold investment from them. To this end, it examines what role investors’ expectations about the future of protein in sub-Saharan Africa play in mobilising investment in some places, protein sources and value chains – and in deterring investment in others. It thus examines what role the power to produce authoritative visions for the future of food, and to convince investors to act upon them, might play in transforming the organisation of protein production, provisioning and consumption within the region. https://www.doi.org/10.56661/d8817170 Suggested citation: Brice, J., (2022) Investment, Power and Protein in sub-Saharan Africa. TABLE Reports. TABLE, University of Oxford, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Wageningen University and Research. doi.org/10.56661/d8817170

The history of protein, from its 'discovery' and naming in 1838, is a story weaving science, nutritional politics, cultural attitudes to food, and much more. An understanding of this history is invaluable if we are to contextualise the current focus on protein that characterises discourses about health and sustainable food systems, and popular beliefs about fitness and nutrition. In this piece, we trace the history of protein from 1838 through to the end of the 'Protein fiasco' in 1974, discovering many echoes of the modern day. Table of contents: Introduction Section 1: The primary substance Section 2: Meat makes meat: the first protein fashion Section 3: Testing the lower limit: the end of the first protein fashion Section 4: 1918-1955: milk, aid and biopolitics Section 5: Protein fiasco Section 6: Epilogue Suggested citation: Blaxter, T., & Garnett, T. (2022). Primed for power: a short cultural history of protein. TABLE, University of Oxford, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Wageningen University and Research. https://doi.org/10.56661/ba271ef5 https://www.doi.org/10.56661/ba271ef5