American olive oil producers draft federal marketing order

American olive oil producers are drafting a federal marketing order that would set higher quality standards, redefine grades and require new testing of all olive oil produced there. If they can get the order adopted by the USDA, industry sources say, domestic producers will push for the rules to apply to imports too. The effort is the latest in a series of initiatives intended to level the playing field with olive oil importers who have long enjoyed an absence of quality enforcement in the world’s biggest market. The result has been an extra virgin grade with no real meaning, and a public so accustomed to rancid olive oil, they actually prefer it in taste tests.