Pellets are usually made from sawdust, dry chips, or wood chippings, a byproduct of sawmills and planing mills.

​Within Swedish pellet production, in principle only raw materials are used that originate from the forest, mainly sawdust, dry chips and wood chippings. In line with an increased demand for pellets, however, forest raw materials such as bark, root (branches and tops) and saplings have also become relevant.

​Sawdust mainly consists of softwood and therefore has a high energy content, low ash content and high ash melting temperature. This means that the raw material has very good combustion properties.

​Cutter shavings and dry chips are by-products when processing dried wood. In addition, a certain amount of chippings from carpentry is added. When pelletizing, the raw material does not normally need to be dried (sometimes you may even need to add extra steam/water to raise the water content).

This means that chippings are a suitable raw material for smaller-scale systems. It has therefore become common to use smaller pellet presses at carpentry shops and smaller sawmills.