Commodity Products
Products, co-products & by-products
Most commodities are not consumed as harvested. They are milled, crushed, ginned, fermented, or refined into products — and almost always into more than one at once. This section documents those outputs and ties each one back to the commodity it came from.
Three kinds of output
A single transformation usually yields several things at once. The distinction between them is economic and technical, not arbitrary:
- Primary product
- The main intended output of the process — wheat flour from milling wheat grain, refined sugar from cane.
- Co-product
- A deliberate, valuable output produced simultaneously and inseparably — soybean meal and soybean oil are both co-products of crushing; neither is waste.
- By-product
- A residual output of lower value that the process is not run to produce — bagasse from cane milling, hulls from dehulling. Many by-products have real feed, fibre, or energy value.
Every product entry names its parent commodity explicitly. A product is never inferred from a shared crop parent: two things made from the same plant are not automatically made from each other.
What these pages are not
These are reference descriptions of agricultural products and the transformations that yield them. They are not recipes, industrial operating manuals, engineering specifications, or commercial recommendations, and they do not carry prices or yields that are not sourced and dated.
Commodity products A–Z
Each entry covers what the product is, the commodity and process it comes from, its physical form, uses, and the quality attributes that matter.
59 entries
- Processing by-product
Almond Hulls
Almond hulls are the outer layer stripped from the almond fruit before shelling — the fleshy part of a drupe that dried on the tree. They are produced in volumes exceeding the kernels themselves and are fed to ruminants, the largest single outlet for the by-product.
- Primary processed product
Almond Kernels
Almond kernels are the shelled seed — the primary product of almond processing and the form most of the world buys. Grading turns on variety type, size, and integrity, and the kernel's oil content makes rancidity, not spoilage, its limiting factor.
- Primary processed product
Apple Juice Concentrate
Apple juice concentrate is pressed apple juice with most of its water removed. Concentration turns a bulky, perishable liquid into a dense, storable, shippable one — which is why the world juice trade moves concentrate rather than juice.
- Processing by-product
Apple Pomace
Apple pomace is the wet solid residue left when apples are pressed for juice: skins, flesh, cores, and seeds. It is a genuine by-product with feed and pectin outlets, but it is wet, bulky, and spoils fast, so its value depends entirely on what happens in the first hours after pressing.
- Manufacturing by-product
Bagasse
Bagasse is the wet fibrous residue left after cane is crushed and its juice extracted. Most of it is burnt on the spot to raise the steam and power the mill runs on, which makes a cane factory unusual among food processors: it is fuelled by its own waste.
- Manufacturing co-product
Beet Molasses
Beet molasses is the final liquor of beet sugar manufacture, holding the sucrose that the beet’s own impurities would not release. It is bitter rather than sweet-tasting, which sends it to yeast growing and fermentation rather than to the feed uses cane molasses dominates.
- Manufacturing co-product
Beet Pulp
Beet pulp is what remains of the sliced beet after diffusion has taken the sugar out: the cell-wall material, pressed and usually dried into pellets. It is a well-regarded ruminant feed valued for highly digestible fibre rather than starch.
- Primary manufactured product
Beet Sugar
Beet sugar is crystalline sucrose made from sugar beet, normally produced as finished white sugar in one integrated factory rather than as a raw crystal for refining elsewhere. Chemically it is the same sucrose as cane sugar, and the finished products are indistinguishable.
- Milling co-product
Broken Rice
Broken rice is the fragment fraction separated from whole grains during rice milling. It is the same edible endosperm as white rice, sold apart because rice is priced on grain integrity rather than on what it is made of.
- Processing by-product
Cassava Peel
Cassava peel is the outer layers taken off the root at the start of every processing route. It accumulates wet and in quantity wherever cassava is processed, rots quickly, and requires processing before it can be fed — which is why it is as often a disposal problem as a feed resource.
- Primary extracted product
Cassava Starch
Cassava starch, traded widely as tapioca starch, is starch washed out of fresh cassava roots and dried to a white powder. It is the form in which most internationally traded cassava actually moves, and it is a different product from cassava flour.
- Processing by-product
Citrus Peel
Citrus peel is the peel, rag, and seed residue left after oranges are juiced — roughly half the fruit by weight. Too voluminous to discard and too wet to store, it is dried into pellets for ruminant feed and mined for pectin and peel oil.
- Primary processed product
Cocoa Nibs
Cocoa nibs are the cracked kernel of the cocoa bean with the shell winnowed away — the primary product of cocoa processing and the actual raw material of chocolate. Everything chocolate is made of comes from the nib; the shell is separated off as a by-product.
- Processing by-product
Cocoa Shell
Cocoa shell is the thin, light husk winnowed away from the nib during cocoa processing. It is a low-value residual with fuel, mulch, and limited feed outlets — and one whose theobromine content restricts which animals can safely be given it.
- Primary milled product
Cornmeal
Cornmeal is the principal food output of maize dry milling: ground endosperm, sold across a range of particle sizes. It is a staple food across much of Africa and the Americas and the basis of polenta, grits, and cornbread.
- Processing by-product
Cotton Linters
Cotton linters are the short fuzz fibres the gin leaves behind on the seed, cut off later at the oil mill. Too short to spin, they are among the purest natural cellulose available, and that purity — not their length — is what they are bought for.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Cottonseed Meal
Cottonseed meal is the de-oiled solid fraction from crushing cottonseed. It is a well-regarded ruminant protein whose market is bounded by gossypol: the compound stays with the meal when refining strips it from the oil.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Cottonseed Oil
Cottonseed oil is the oil extracted from cottonseed, produced alongside cottonseed meal. Refining removes the gossypol that restricts the meal, so the oil enters food use freely — the clearest case of two co-products diverging in regulatory standing.
- Dairy separation co-product
Cream
Cream is the fat-rich stream obtained when whole milk is centrifugally separated, produced simultaneously with skim milk. It concentrates the milk fat into a smaller volume, and it is both a product in its own right and the feedstock for butter and other fat-based dairy products.
- Primary processed product
Dehydrated Onion
Dehydrated onion is the primary product of onion dehydration: bulbs peeled, sliced, and dried until the water that makes a fresh onion perishable is gone, then traded as flakes, granules, or powder for food manufacturing.
- Milling co-product
Durum Flour
Durum flour is the fine endosperm fraction that a durum mill produces alongside semolina. It is a marketed co-product with real uses in breads, couscous, and noodles, not a milling loss.
- Primary processed food product
Gari
Gari is a dry, granular, fermented cassava food of West Africa, made by grating peeled roots, pressing and fermenting the mash, then toasting it over heat. The sequence both makes the root safe to eat and turns a crop that spoils in days into a staple that keeps for months.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Groundnut Cake
Groundnut cake is the protein-rich solid fraction left after oil is taken from groundnut kernels. It is a valued feed protein across South Asia and Africa, and the commodity’s aflatoxin risk follows it into the cake, making provenance and storage central to its trade.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Groundnut Oil
Groundnut oil is the oil expressed or extracted from groundnut kernels, produced alongside groundnut cake. It is valued for frying stability and, in some markets, for the flavour retained by less refined grades.
- Primary crushing product
Linseed Oil
Linseed oil is the primary product of crushing flaxseed: a drying oil that oxidises and polymerises into a solid film. That property makes it a coatings raw material, while cold-pressed food grades of the same oil are sold as flaxseed oil.
- Milling by-product
Maize Bran
Maize bran is the fibrous pericarp separated during maize dry milling. It is a low-value residual sold mainly into feed, and it is a by-product rather than a co-product because the mill removes it rather than sets out to make it.
- Milling co-product
Maize Germ
Maize germ is the oil-bearing embryo separated during maize dry milling. It is a co-product with genuine value: it is the raw material for corn oil, and the meal left after extraction is a feed ingredient.
- Primary processed product
Malted Barley
Malted barley is barley that has been germinated under control and then kilned to arrest the process. Malting is the deliberate partial sprouting of a grain — the one cereal transformation that requires the commodity to be alive.
- Manufacturing co-product
Molasses
Molasses is the dark, viscous liquor left when a cane mill can crystallise no more sugar out of it economically. It still holds sugars, and its markets — feed, fermentation, and distilling — are built on exactly that.
- Milling by-product
Oat Hulls
Oat hulls are the papery outer covering separated from the groat during dehulling. They are a bulky, fibrous, low-value residual, generated in large volume because the hull is a substantial share of the delivered oat.
- Primary processed product
Orange Juice
Orange juice is the primary product of the orange crop by volume, not a sideline of the fresh trade. It moves as frozen concentrate or as chilled not-from-concentrate juice, and the choice between those two forms shapes the entire processing industry.
- Processed food product
Pearl Barley
Pearl barley is barley with its hull and outer layers abraded away, leaving a rounded whole grain for direct cooking. It comes from a mechanical route entirely separate from malting, and it is not a malt product.
- Primary extracted product
Potato Starch
Potato starch is starch extracted from potato tubers by wet processing and dried to a fine white powder. Its unusually large granules and naturally bound phosphate give it a distinctive high-viscosity, clear-pasting behaviour that separates it from cereal starches.
- Primary processed product
Raisins
Raisins are grapes with their water removed — the oldest solution to the vine fruit's perishability. Drying converts a bunch that needs a cold chain and a fortnight into a shelf-stable commodity that travels anywhere and keeps for a year.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Rapeseed Meal
Rapeseed meal is the de-oiled solid fraction from crushing rapeseed, traded as a feed protein. Its modern feed role rests on double-low breeding: the reduction of glucosinolates transformed the meal from a constrained material into a mainstream ingredient.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Rapeseed Oil
Rapeseed oil is the oil separated from rapeseed during crushing. Low erucic acid oil is a major food oil — sold as canola oil in several markets — while high erucic acid oil is a segregated industrial product, and the two are not interchangeable.
- Primary manufactured product
Raw Sugar
Raw sugar is the golden-brown crystal a cane mill produces: sucrose crystallised out of cane juice and spun free of most, but not all, of its mother liquor. It is the world’s traded sugar commodity, shipped in bulk to refineries that finish it into white sugar.
- Primary manufactured product
Refined Sugar
Refined sugar is white sugar: raw cane sugar stripped of the molasses film and the impurities that colour it. Refining is the step that finishes cane sugar — and the step beet largely does not need, because a beet factory produces white sugar directly without a raw-sugar stage.
- Milling co-product
Rice Bran
Rice bran is the oil-rich outer layer and germ abraded from brown rice during whitening. It is a valuable co-product, but it degrades within hours of being made unless it is stabilised.
- Milling by-product
Rice Husk
Rice husk is the hard outer covering stripped from paddy during hulling. It is abrasive, high in silica, and almost indigestible, and it is generated in enormous volume wherever rice is milled.
- Primary processed product
Rolled Oats
Rolled oats are oat groats that have been kilned, steamed, and flattened between rollers. Kilning is not optional: without it the groat oil would go rancid and no stable oat product would be possible.
- Primary milled product
Rye Flour
Rye flour is the primary product of rye milling. Because rye bran does not separate cleanly from the endosperm, rye flours are graded by how much of the whole grain they retain rather than by a clean fractionation.
- Wool processing primary product
Scoured Wool
Scoured wool is greasy wool that has been washed to remove wool grease, suint, and dirt. It is the primary product of raw wool: the clean fibre that every subsequent textile operation works with, and the form in which wool is actually measured, priced, and traded as fibre.
- Primary milled product
Semolina
Semolina is the primary product of durum milling: coarse, angular particles of durum endosperm, sized and purified for pasta making. Its particle size is the point, not an incidental property.
- Processing by-product
Shive
Shive is the woody core of the flax stem, shattered and shaken out when retted straw is scutched. It leaves the mill in greater bulk than the fibre does, and it has found real markets in animal bedding, panel board, and biocomposites.
- Dairy separation co-product
Skim Milk
Skim milk is the fat-depleted stream produced when whole milk is centrifugally separated. It is a co-product of separation rather than a residue: it carries the protein, lactose, and minerals of the original milk and is the basis of a large share of the dairy ingredient trade.
- Oilseed crushing by-product
Soybean Hulls
Soybean hulls are the seed coats removed when soybeans are dehulled ahead of oil extraction. They are a genuine by-product: residual and low in value relative to meal and oil, but with a real market as a digestible fibre source for ruminant feed.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Soybean Meal
Soybean meal is the protein-rich solid fraction remaining after oil is separated from soybeans. It is the reference protein ingredient of the global feed industry and a co-product of crushing — produced simultaneously with soybean oil, not left over from it.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Soybean Oil
Soybean oil is the oil fraction separated from soybeans during crushing, traded crude or refined. It is one of the most widely produced vegetable oils, used in food manufacture and as an industrial and biodiesel feedstock, and it is a co-product alongside soybean meal.
- Oilseed pressing co-product
Soybean Press Cake
Soybean press cake is the solid residue left after soybeans are mechanically pressed for oil. It is distinct from solvent-extracted soybean meal: pressing cannot remove all the oil, so the cake retains more of it — which is precisely why solvent extraction exists.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Sunflower Meal
Sunflower meal is the de-oiled solid fraction from crushing sunflower seed, traded as a feed protein. Its specification is governed by how much hull was removed before extraction, so it reaches the market at several distinct protein and fibre grades.
- Oilseed crushing co-product
Sunflower Oil
Sunflower oil is the oil separated from sunflower seed during crushing, traded crude or refined and in linoleic, mid-oleic, and high-oleic types. It is a co-product produced alongside sunflower meal.
- Primary processed product
Tomato Paste
Tomato paste is the primary product of tomato processing: fruit crushed, screened, and evaporated until the soluble solids are concentrated. It is traded in bulk as a shelf-stable intermediate and remade into sauces, ketchup, and canned products further down the chain.
- Processing by-product
Tomato Pomace
Tomato pomace is the skin, seed, and pulp residue screened out when tomatoes are processed for juice and paste. It is a genuine by-product — unavoidable, lower in value than the paste it accompanies, and used mainly as animal feed.
- Milling co-product
Wheat Bran
Wheat bran is the outer layers of the wheat kernel, separated during milling. It is a genuine co-product rather than waste: it carries most of the kernel’s fibre and is traded for animal feed and for food use.
- Primary milled product
Wheat Flour
Wheat flour is the primary product of milling wheat grain: the endosperm reduced to a fine powder after the bran and germ are separated. Extraction rate, protein, and particle size determine which flours suit which end uses.
- Milling co-product
Wheat Germ
Wheat germ is the embryo of the wheat kernel, separated during roller milling. It is taken out not because it is unwanted but because its oil shortens the keeping quality of flour — and once separated it has its own food and feed market.
- Harvest by-product
Wheat Straw
Wheat straw is the dry stem material left in the field once the grain has been threshed out. It is a by-product of harvesting the grain rather than of any processing method, and it has real uses — bedding, roughage, mushroom substrate, board, and fuel — set against the soil value of leaving it where it fell.
- Processed spice product
White Pepper
White pepper is the pepper berry with its outer fruit wall removed: riper berries steeped in water until the pericarp can be rubbed off, leaving the pale seed to be dried. It is the same fruit as black pepper taken down a different processing route, and it trades as a distinct product with its own grades and prices.
Sources
This article draws on the following authoritative sources. See our sources & methodology for how they are selected.
- [1]FAO — Food and Agriculture Organization (opens in a new tab)Authoritative
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Cited for: Agricultural product definitions and processing context
- Type:
- Intergovernmental organization
- Jurisdiction:
- Global
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-12
- [2]USDA — U.S. Department of Agriculture (opens in a new tab)Authoritative
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Cited for: Product naming and compositional context
- Type:
- Government agency
- Jurisdiction:
- United States
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-12