Cell lysis (mechanical disruption) followed by purification (extraction) for this low value product is likely out of the question. I think you are probably on the right track with the surfactant approach but you might want to branch out and try a few more things like solvents for instance. You need to do some experiments to see what is effective at solubilizing the product from whole cells and getting it into a smaller volume. You can probably make some good guesses based on the chemistry of their product. This is a tough problem though.