Why does soy milk cost so much?

An excellent question; on the one hand, cows process gr and produce the milk themselves in a state that needs only storage and sterilization (or basic manipulation), while soy milk requires you to buy the beans and process them yourself to produce the 'milk', which is considerably less in volume than the beans from which it is made. On the other hand, dairy cattle aren't cheap to maintain. On the other, other hand, 'milk' milk production is a big business, and has been for some time, while soy milk production is still comparatively small-time and small-scale. I suppose a good comparison would be microbrew beer or specialist cheeses compared to the major national brands. You pay partly for smaller scale and partly for the 'special' cachet. It would be interesting to see the percent profit on some of these products, though.