It's not really a premium. They do not benefit from economies of scale the way the big players do. I had a friend who was a mashgiach for Miller's years ago and they did a 2-day run in a dairy on an irregular schedule. So the dairy would be operating 5-6 days a week for the bigger companies and then shut down and kasher the equipment and then run kosher batches for 2 days (in a month or every other month, it varied). He monitored the kashering, the rennet pour and the transfer of the curds to barrels for shipment to Miller's packagers. When you're dealing in relatively small quantities then it's hard to compete effectively on price.
I don't want to come across as an apologist for Kosher cheesemakers, but you gotta give them some credit for addressing the needs of the market. I don't doubt that they would prefer to sell more broadly and at cheaper prices, but unlike kosher meat, where it carries a cachet that may persuade non-kosher buyers to pay a premium, nobody's paying extra for string cheese or American cheese unless it's an issue of dietary observance. So nobody's getting super-wealthy on kosher cheese alone.
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