At my local supermarket Swiss cheese - whether it be lacy swiss, fancy swiss, baby swiss, what have you - costs over four dollars a pound. Why is this? Is all Swiss cheese hand-made or something? I can get a pound of American cheese, sliced and wrapped, for pete’s sake, for $2.50. I like Swiss cheese a lot, but I want to know why I must pay through the nose for it.
American Cheese is really a low quality chedder. YOu are compairing apples to oranges here. Please go back to the suppermarket and compare the price of swiss to regular chedder - I think you will see the price difference disappear.
As k2dave said, comparing Swiss cheese to American cheese isn’t a fair comparison. In terms of high quality cheese, not the kind you normally find in a supermarket, the more expense Swiss cheese tends to be much cheaper than the more expensive types of most other types of cheese. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Swiss for more than $10/pound, whereas it’s easy to find cheddars and goudas and bleu for over $20/pound.
American Cheese is made with used motor oil and vegetable paste they can’t use for cattle feed so, it can be made very cheaply.
Try comparing the price of Swiss Cheese with other European imported cheeses and you will see there is not much difference. If Swiss cheese is a bit more expensive it is because they feed their cows with chocolate. 
God, where do you shop? The cheese must be gold-plated. I have never paid anything near that, and I like good cheddar.
All Swiss cheese must have a quality control review periodically by Arnold Winkelried to assure its Swissness. (How do you think he has so much time to moderate this board?) 
Without pissing all over American cheese, Lizard, you’ve pretty much hit it on the nose. American cheese is “untouched by human hands”, as some company used to advertise. It is produced in a factory, where it is processed, wrapped, and packaged by machine, and on a truck the same day, with no more human intervention than is required to get it on the truck and keep the machines filled with ingredients (which don’t actually include used motor oil, funny as that line was). Actually, if you read the packaging, some “American cheese” is so far from the real thing that it can’t legally be called cheese. It is often labelled “cheese food” or “cheese food product”. There is usually no actual milk or cream used in producing this stuff. Sometime there are milk solids used, but mostly it’s vegetable oil. If you’re going to buy American cheese, stick to Land O’ Lakes or Kraft, both of which contain some real milk (and, consequently, cost more than the really bogus versions), and are (quibbles aside) real cheese.
Real cheeses, Swiss among them, are made entirely from milk of some type (cow, goat or sheep) and, sometimes, cream in a natural process that takes time and human supervision. Cheese is the result of (harmless) bacterial action, and takes time. The cheeses also have to be tended during the aging process and, in some cases, turned, trimmed, or pressed again.
Cheddars producers, in particular, make a point of this aging process because the longer the cheese ages, the sharper the taste (and the more expensive it is). Real Parmaggiano Regiano is another cheese that is often advertised by how long it was aged, as in 14 months, etc. Most cheeses don’t bother, because they don’t improve past a certain point, but you’re generally talking about at least a month.
But, that’s why real “Swiss” cheese (which is more likely to come from Wisconsin, Denmark, or Finland than Switzerland, these days). has better taste and texture and a higher price.
Lizard’s right. If you look in the regular refrigerator case at the supermarket–not the gourmet section with the Brie and the imported Cheddar that’s handmade by beautiful English maidens–Swiss is more than Cheddar, Monterey Jack and Mozzarella. WE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!
Most decent cheese that you’ll be able to buy in a supermarket will cost somewhere between $4 and $10 per pound. If you’re only paying $2.50 per pound, it’s not good cheese. If the most expensive cheese in your supermarket is Swiss that costs $4 a pound, that means that your supermarket doesn’t have a decent selection of cheese.
Whoa. I have NEVER seen Swiss cheese that was imported. I live in north-central Ohio, and virtually all cheese sold around here was made within an two-hour drive. Ohio has a pretty healthy dairy industry.
Absolutely true, as it is a very small country market. But I have noticed that the price ratios tend to stay the same, no matter where I buy cheese. Swiss cheese is always the most expensive, anywhere.
I think demand in my locale must have something to do with it (and I will give their due to the ‘hand-made and with real milk’ arguments.) Swiss cheese is pretty popular in Ohio. In fact, it’s one of the few types of cheese you will find for salle literally anywhere you go. Can anybody from places well outside the Midwest testify as to the prices of cheese in their neck o’ the woods?
>> I have NEVER seen Swiss cheese that was imported
Well, excuuuuse me. I thought you might be referring to Swiss cheese from Switzerland but now I see you are referring to American made Swiss cheese. I suppose you consume it with a sip of American Champagne A.K.A. Cocacola which is definitely cheaper than French Champagne.
I think this calls for some scientific investigation.
I took a look in my fridge, and Jack cheese (which in this house house is the cheese equivelent of “table wine”) is $2.55 a pound. While Jack is nothing special (at least here in California) this cheese was from an ultra-fancy grocery store (The kind of place that sells truffles and hundred dollar bottles of vinigar). Sadly, I don’t have the lables for the other cheeses I have, but in general I’ll pay between two and five dollars for a smallish block of everyday cheese.
Well, just the very idea of importing cheese around here seemed a little strange. It would be like Russia importing vodka, or Indonesia importing cheap clothing. If this stuff really WAS made in Switzerland, there’d be no debate over its price. But all the cheese I buy around here is made literally just down the road.
I was born in Ohio and lived there a total of 20 years and I believe Lizard is right. However, if you want to taste good cheese made in the good old U.S.A. go to Wisconsin.
One cheese that used to be real popular was Roquefort cheese. All of a sudden you couldn’t get it and instead bleu cheese was offered. Bleu cheese is good, but doesn’t hold a candle to Roquefort cheese. I don’t know for sure but I strongly suspect import taxes were to blame. The diary farmers are protected, subsidized and babied, so of course you don’t buy imported cheese. So much for free trade.
Wisconsin. State Motto: “Eat Cheese or Die” 
I think there’s another point to this argument. “American” cheese is cheaper not just because it is made from cheaper ingredients, but because it can be made from cheaper ingredients. The holes in Swiss cheese are made by a bacteria called an “eye former.” Your typical preservative-laden American cheese block would kill off those bacteria before they form. Swiss cheese therefore can’t contain those preservatives, hence they have to be made from a little more pricey ingredients.
Source: my great-grandfather’s old cheese concern in Clearfield, PA.
Well I just checked my fridge. There was a block of genuine Gruyere, but it had lost its price tag. We had several other cheeses there, an aged cheddar, so havarti, an Oka and they all cost in the neighborhood of Can$20/kg, which comes to around US$6/lb and I assume the Gruyere was similar.
Twice I have been to a cheese factory in Gruyere, once in 1971 and once in 1997 and there were a lot of changes in between, but the basic process was the same, although with fewer workers the wecond time. Start with 4000 liters of milk, heat to 55 deg C, add a couple boxes of rennet, let it sit for a while and then cut it with a cheese harp, drain the whey and shovel the curds into forms and squeeze as much whey out as possible. Then it is salted and aged and finally shipped. Quite interesting actually and they have a small museum on the balcony from which you watch it all. And worth every cent you pay for it.
Geez, you guys have it so easy. Down here, a decent Swiss/Emmenthal costs around $18-20 per kg (about $9-10 lb) while the more ‘exotic’ cheeses like camemberts and blues can be around $40-$50 kg. And funnily enough, it is more likely to be our local cheeses that are the most expensive. 
I have no idea what the prices are here, but I know that they are more expensive in Ontario for many cheeses than they are in Quebec, where the dairy industry is somewhat bigger. Also, in general, Quebec consumes more cheese than any other provinces (according to my SO’s father, who is a major wine & cheese fan!). There are so many amazing, locally made cheeses which DO compare to true imported quality cheeses in terms of taste and quality.
Now, if you really like cheese, especially Swiss as I do, and are as cheap as I am, you’ll be looking up your friends in the restaurant trade or checking wholesale houses.
I buy it that way in 5 or 10 pound blocks, whack it up and freeze it saving at least a couple dollars a pound over retail prices in stores. Cheese has a real big markup in the stores.
Swiss for some reason freezes better than most other cheeses I’ve tried. I can’t tell that it has been previously frozen.