After an October fundraising drive netted Southeast Portland's Know Thy Food more than $30,000, owner Rebecca Andersson bought shopping carts and two produce bins and installed seven taps for beer, cider and kombucha. She had a checkout stand built with reclaimed wood from a bowling alley.

Now comes the hard part.

Last month, Andersson launched a daily neighborhood market at 3434 S.E. Milwaukie Ave. And next year, she wants to turn Know Thy Food into a co-op, in which employees and customers can buy shares and become owners.

But getting a co-op off the ground requires patience and a large and committed group of customer-owners. Finding outside funding can be difficult. And it takes several years to make the transition from conception to grand opening, said Bob Davis, a Portland consultant who works with co-ops.

To get started, co-ops must cultivate a committed base of owners who are willing to support the values of the operation with their wallets, Davis said.

In addition to providing the initial investment, the base helps convince banks and other lenders that a co-op is a sustainable venture that's worth the investment.

"It's harder to get loans as a co-op," said Shawn Furst, the development manager for People's Food Co-op on Southeast 21st Avenue.

"People just don't know about us. And a lot of lenders view the structure with suspicion because they don't understand it."

Andersson created Know Thy Food four years ago for parents who wanted to buy food in bulk from a local farm. She moved the club into a warehouse on Milwaukie Avenue in May 2010 and opened a café there five months later.

Now Know Thy Food is a small market that sells locally grown produce, wine, beer, dairy products, grass-fed beef and other items. The market is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.

A soft opening on Nov. 18 drew 200 to 300 people, Andersson said, a group that included familiar faces and new customers.

"I was really, really surprised by the number of strangers I had never met before," Andersson said. "It was a five-hour nonstop stream of people coming in. It was so much fun."

By the end of 2013, Andersson wants to step down as the sole owner and create a co-op owned by customers and employees.

A steering committee has been formed to help Know Thy Food make that transition. This week the staff attended a training session on consensus-based decision-making.

"It's going to be challenging," Andersson said. "Our goal is to be collectively managed. Some of my staff has experience with that kind of thing. But I personally don't."

The food-buying club includes about 1,000 members, about a third of whom are "really active," Andersson said. About 280 people contributed to the fundraising campaign.

People's Co-op, which was created in 1970, now includes 3,500 customer-owners who pay $180 per share, usually over a period of six years, Furst said.

It generally takes about three years to create a food co-op, said Davis. His firm, Oblique Solutions Northwest, is working with residents in the Montavilla neighborhood in Southeast Portland to create a co-op.

But Know Thy Food isn't starting from scratch. There's already a retail space, inventory and a customer base.

The members of Know They Food's food-buying club could serve as a healthy launching pad to create a co-op, Davis said. But owners have to do more than purchase a stake in the business.

"Just because you buy a share, that's not the end of it," he said. "There's a lot of sweat equity that goes into building a co-op enterprise."

In Montavilla, Davis said, there's an outreach committee seeking additional owners, an IT committee working on the website and someone who manages the Facebook page. A coordinating committee oversees the entire operation.

When People's Co-op expanded about a decade ago, owners with construction skills stepped in to help the contractor, said Davis, who used to serve on the People's board.

In Portland, small markets that sell locally produced food are a tight group, whether they're co-ops or privately owned. Amanda Wiles, a co-owner of North Portland's Cherry Sprout Produce, said small markets share advice and equipment.

"They're not really competition," Wiles said. "We're all in the same boat. We're all trying to help each other out."

Andersson has already begun seeking advice from Portland's co-op community. But she said Know Thy Food's transition to a co-op model remains in the early stages.

For now, she and her employees are figuring out how to run a neighborhood market.

"We're still learning," she said. "We've barely been open for two weeks."

Stephen Beaven: 503-754-4664

Twitter: @SEPDXreporter