Global situation of reference materials to assure coffee, cocoa, and tea quality and safety

Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) are particularly important in determining food safety, complying with phytosanitary trade restrictions, and protecting consumers. Mainly in the case of the most consumed beverages in the world, namely, coffee, cocoa, and tea, the investigation of their CRMs production provides an overview of the researched analytes and points out which areas need to be studied, which also contributes to improving their safety and quality. This review discusses aspects related to reference material (RM) preparation processes, as well as the results of homogeneity and stability tests and their application to coffee, cocoa, and tea, together with an overview of the patents developed for food RM. Results show there is a clear need to develop CRM and RM for these matrices for other analytes of interest, such as chlorogenic acids and other phenolic compounds, which will provide reliable measurements. •Certified Reference Materials and Reference Materials contribute to quality assurance through food control analysis.•The development of reference material for food is a challenge to complex matrices such as coffee, cocoa, and tea.•Reference materials are particularly important for providing reliable measurements of food composition data.•Food authenticity analyses using reference materials are mandatory.