A raw material is a material in its raw state (material extracted from nature: notion of natural resource), or, after collection, having undergone a first transformation at the place of exploitation to make it suitable for international exchange, used in the transformation of finished materials or as a source of energy. For materials intended for food, we speak rather of agricultural food products and products of hunting and fishing.
The United Nations uses the broad term “commodity”, which was officially defined by the Havana Charter in 1948 as “any product of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and minerals, whether in natural form or processed as commonly required for sale in substantial quantities on the international market”.1 The term “commodity” is used by the United Nations to describe the products of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and minerals, whether in natural form or processed as commonly required for sale in substantial quantities on the international market.
The Anglo-Saxon world sometimes uses the term commodity, a commodity that is less concerned with a stage of processing than with a market situation and includes intangible goods such as electricity (as a “supply”), services (wikipedia): Trade and Trends