NORWICH — An Illinois financial firm has filed a foreclosure notice against Norwich Farm on Turnpike Road, asserting that the boutique creamery has failed to keep current on its mortgage payments, taxes and insurance.
Iroquois Valley Farms, an Illinois-based real estate investment trust that specializes investing in organic farms, demands Norwich Farm Foundation and affiliates repay a total $1.07 million, including $850,000 in mortgage principal, $120,000 in interest and nearly $79,000 in property taxes, according to court documents.
The $850,000 loan was the principal financing source that the nonprofit Norwich Farm Foundation used to purchase the property in 2022. The loan was secured by a limited liability company registered in the name of Chris Gray, who operates the creamery with his wife Laura Brown.
The foreclosure action was filed in Windsor County Superior Court in July and is pending. It follows a failed effort to sell the property and operation to Dartmouth College when the nonprofit organization that owns the property and leases to the creamery put it on the market with an asking price of $1.275 million in 2024.
In August 2024, shortly before it was listed for sale, Norwich Farm operators Brown and Gray wrote to Dartmouth’s sustainability office proposing the college buy the property and creamery business.
The couple pitched the idea to Dartmouth as an “opportunity to make long-term improvements in its sustainability infrastructure, its role in the local community, and its student experience,” according to the letter.
Norwich Farm Foundation is a nonprofit that owns the 6.4-acre Norwich Farm property, while Norwich Farm Creamery is a business entity managed by Chris Gray that produces Grade A dairy products and leases the Norwich Farm facility on a month-to-month basis.
The couple detailed a $2.1 million business plan that would allow Dartmouth “to secure ownership of the property and the business” and provide needed capital to “bring a working herd of cows back to the farm,” hire two herd managers, expand production three-fold and “grow to be financially self-sustaining after five years,” according to the 21-page offering document they submitted to the college.
Gray, in an email to Dartmouth community supporters in March, said that after “having persisted” for six months he and Brown were able to win responses — including a site visit by the college’s director of sustainability — from senior Dartmouth administrators, including President Sian Leah Beilock.
But Gray wrote the reception to the pitch seemed uncertain, noting the “message back” signaled “not a lot of enthusiasm for a ‘new’ project, especially given current ‘conditions.’ “
Dartmouth ultimately passed on owning and operating the Norwich creamery.
“We reviewed the proposal and, after careful consideration, communicated back to them that it wasn’t the right fit,” Dartmouth spokesperson, Jana Barnello, said via email on Tuesday.
(The college has long operated Dartmouth Organic Farm — known as “O Farm” — alongside the Connecticut River on Route 10 north of downtown Hanover as a hands-on teaching and research site).
The real estate listing to sell the property, which was listed with Four Seasons Sotheby’s Hanover office, is no longer online.
Launched in 2017 by taking over a discontinued dairy training operation for students of Vermont Technical College, the Norwich creamery — which produces bottled milk, chocolate milk, ricotta cheese, yogurt and rice pudding — has struggled financially from the get-go.
Iroquios Valley Farms, the REIT, issued a $850,000 note to Norwich Farm Foundation in May, 2022, which was only two months before the foundation closed on its purchase of the farm the following July for $1.07 million.
The loan to Norwich Farm Foundation is guaranteed by Lucky US Ranch LLC, a Vermont entity which is registered to Gray, according to court and state records.
But Iroquios Valley Farms has been slowed down in an attempt to expedite repayment of its note and to issue a default judgment against Norwich Farm.
Typically, farm properties have a six-month “redemption period” from the time when they have been served with a foreclosure notice to satisfy debt issues with the lender.
Iroquois, however, asked the court on Sept. 29 to order the property foreclosed immediately, arguing that the Norwich creamery is not “farmland” entitled to the six-month redemption period.
Instead, Iroquois argued, Norwich Farm is a “manufacturing” facility that relies on raw milk produced on other farms to make its dairy products and therefore should be ineligible for the extended timeline.
On Oct. 21 the judge overseeing the case denied Iroquois’ motion, according to court records, handing the creamery a small victory.
An attorney for Iroquois declined to comment and an attorney for Gray and Brown did not respond to an email seeking comment.
In an email to the Valley News on Wedneday, Brown and Gray took pride the farm’s long history and their involvement with it for the past decade while hanging on to hope that a white knight might yet emerge.
“The best result for us and the town is to keep this what it has been for 125 years: a working farm. We have a five-year growth plan that makes it sustainable, even without access to the pastures. We can’t keep up with our current customer demand, so we can grow if we can raise a round of financing and settle the real estate debt,” Brown and Gray said.
The couple said they are grateful for the “outpouring of support from the community and hundreds of donors to the Norwich Farm Foundation,” adding that “if someone steps forward with financing, there is one last chance to preserve this working farm.”
Iroquois Valley Farms, which states its “goal is to make organic, regenerative agriculture the norm, not the exception in America to benefit the health of the soil and of future generations,” has invested $126.6 million in “organic agriculture” enterprises covering 36,600 acres in 20 states since its founding in 2007, according to the firm’s website.
Other Vermont farms in which Iroquois has made investments include Strafford Village Farm on Justin Morrill Memorial Highway in Strafford and Kingston Place, a natural beef farm and wedding barn in Benson, Vt.
Investors in Iroquois include the Rodale Institute, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, Mission Telecom and Felician Sisters of North America, according the firm’s website.
