This paper reports about the feasibility studies for the development of new food matrix-Reference Materials (RMs) aimed to evaluate quality, safety and traceability of selected food products, performed during the "Early Phase" (H2020 INFRADEV-02-2016 PRO-METROFOOD, G.A. 739568) of METROFOOD-RI "Infrastructure for Promoting Metrology in Food and Nutrition" (ESFRI Domain "Health & Food"), in the frame of the development of pilot services. With this purpose, batches of oyster tissue, rice grains and rice flour were prepared in lyophilized form (oyster tissue) or in their raw form (rice), homogenised, partitioned and then characterised for a very wide set of parameters, such as: contaminants, biomarkers, stable isotopes, markers of origin/authenticity. Such a wide characterisation was aimed to involve as many laboratories as possible and to go forward the development of "Multipurpose-RMs", meaning new RMs having certified, reference or information values for several different parameters. Homogeneity studies and stability studies under thermal and luminous stress are underway. © 2018 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.