A
raw material, also known as a
feedstock or most correctly
unprocessed material, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished products, energy, or intermediate materials which are feedstock for future finished products. As feedstock, the term connotes these materials are bottleneck assets and are highly important with regards to producing other products. An example of this is
crude oil, which is a raw material and a feedstock used in the production of industrial
chemicals,
fuels,
plastics, and
pharmaceutical goods;
lumber is a raw material used to produce a variety of products including furniture.