MURRELLS INLET, S.C. (WBTW) — With Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. planning to eliminate at least six synthetic food dyes found in American food by the end of next year, a South Carolina ice cream shop has already started cutting the dyes out of their supply.

Several ice cream flavors at Stella’s Homemade Ice Cream are taking a hit from the artificial dye ban. That includes one of their most popular flavors — cookie monster.

Before the ban was even put into action, owner Haley King says the business was already slowly starting working toward removing the artificial dyes due to family concerns.

“I have a niece and nephew that are pretty young, and my sister’s really big on trying to keep food dye out of their diet,” King said. “So when we first opened, we were already kind of on the lenient side, or a little bit on the more protective side, on what we were putting food coloring in.”

Now, the shop is starting to experiment with natural substitutes such as spirulina, a blue-green algae, and purple plum juice to still create fun colors in their ice cream and cake icings.

“Most of our flavors by the end of the season will be completely dye-free, out of our 200 flavors,” King said. “Already, we’re still over the [150 mark] of dye-free flavors already.”

But how do their customers feel about the looming change?

“Back in the 50s and 60s, they didn’t have no artificial flavor. You eat something, they didn’t have all that in there,” Gene Hembree said.

“I won’t get my favorite snacks,” Remy Marion said. “Like Skittles and Fruit Loops.”

“I think it’s good to use natural products when you are able to do it,” Marie Abrams said. “How they’re going to do it? I don’t know.”

At Stella’s, King said the biggest challenge the shop faces is outside candies or cereals being used in their ice cream, which is out of their control.

“Cereal still have them in there,” she said. “So we can’t really — either we don’t make those cereal flavors until they change, or hopefully they’ll change the cereal sooner rather than later.”

King says the process toward change — although already in the works — will take time to fully adjust to.