Cynic in me says: "wait as long as possible and hope that the next administration doesn't care." I think there was a similar event recently with Apple vowing to make a big investment in US factory infrastructure or something, but the projected date was 2028.

It takes a while to experiment, find what replacement works best and how much of it to use, and then set up new supply chains for it.

As for what flavor would warrant dyes? Off the top of my head: Mint, peppermint, strawberry, orange sherbert, blue moon... I'm sure there's more.

Maybe not ice-cream, but with other frozen products I could see that selling to kids is more effective when there is bright identifiable colours involved.

I see you're not from the midwest/Michigan.

Superman flavor is the answer.

> why does it need to take so long?

So they can wait for US regime change and not do it

I'm a sucker for Sloan's "Circus" ice cream flavor. It tastes like cotton candy, is mixed together with gummy bears, and is a very unnatural blue color: https://www.goldbelly.com/restaurants/sloans-ice-cream/circu...

I actually reflexively prefer mint ice cream that's slightly off white to dark green now and I think that's because some of the higher quality brands don't use dye so I associate it with them.