Ingredient "pellets"

Recently I was in the presence of some people who do "food science". The term "pellets" was used to describe an ingredient in a mass produced food product. The first thing that came to my mind was the poison that was used to kill rats - pellets.

      Then I thought of food pellets for animals and fish.

Never did it occur to me that the food products for human consumption were made using anything but raw ingredients. (And of course, depending on what one buys, the required litany of multi-syllabic, tongue-twisting chemicals.) Naive of me wasn't it?  I'm sure it's much less costly to transport pellets of dehydrated stuff (e.g. tomato sauce) than all the tomatoes, onions, garlic and other ingredients of tomato sauce, but somehow it just seems wrong. Think about it. Tomatoes on the vine, processed into sauce, then dehydrated, bagged and shipped who knows where to be rehydrated into something that probably has the words "natural" and "fresh" on the label. Why not just make the sauce and be done with it? Why transport twice?