Raw material

Refer to caption — Sulfur at harbor in North Vancouver, British Columbia, ready to be loaded onto a ship

A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feedstock, the term connotes these materials are bottleneck assets and are required to produce other products.

The term raw material denotes materials in unprocessed or minimally processed states such as raw latex, crude oil, cotton, coal, raw biomass, iron ore, plastic, air, logs, and water.^[1] The term secondary raw material denotes waste material which has been recycled and injected back into use as productive material.^[2]

^ Christophe Degryse, L'économie en 100 et quelques mots d'actualité, De Boeck, 2005, p. 140.
^ European Commission, Raw materials, updated 26 March 2020, accessed 31 December 2020

[1] Christophe Degryse, L'économie en 100 et quelques mots d'actualité, De Boeck, 2005, p. 140.

[2] European Commission, Raw materials, updated 26 March 2020, accessed 31 December 2020

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