The southernmost bakery in the U.S. finds itself needing to expand, having reached capacity.

Punaluu Bake Shop’s bakery and visitor center on the Big Island has become such a popular stop for visitors and local residents that it served roughly 343,000 guests in 2012.

It just won its second consecutive TripAdvisor.com Certificate of Excellence, putting it among the top 10 percent of the more than 2.5 million attractions, restaurants and accommodations worldwide featured on the site.

“We are so humbled to receive this very prestigious award,” said Duane Kurisu, chairman and CEO of bake shop parent company aio. The award was “determined by travelers who appreciate the aloha and hard work of our staff, that goes into each and every one of our products,” he continued in a statement. “This is a big honor for a small Big Island bakery and we couldn’t be more thrilled.” Kurisu also is a minority investor in the Star-Advertiser.

Certificate winners run the gamut from single-room bed-and-breakfasts to 6,000-room hotels, from hometown bakeries to Michelin-starred fine-dining establishments, and from hidden attractions to world-renowned parks and museums, according to a TripAdvisor statement.

Hawaii has several winners, if the news releases pouring like recent rain into your columnist’s email inbox are any indication, but a full list could not be acquired by deadline. It will be posted online upon receipt.

Punaluu Bake Shop employs 34 local residents who bake and cook and staff the gift shop.

Along with its signature long loaves of local-style sweetbread, cookies, malasadas and other sweets to the tune of about 50 items, the bake shop also offers plate lunches, hot sandwiches, cold deli sandwiches and other items, said general manager Connie Koi.

Passengers aboard Hawaiian Airlines’ mainland flights get to sample the bake shop’s Macadamia Nut Shortbread Cookies, which, like so many bakery and gift shop items including Punaluu Bake Shop-branded Kau coffee, can be purchased online.

It also sells hibiscus- and turtle-, or honu-, patterned socks. Yep. Socks.

“A lot of tourists come from cold areas on the mainland, and they’re small” and light, which make them great for gift-giving, Koi said.

The bake shop does get busloads full of visitors, as do many outposts along isolated stretches of roadway. However, the popular rest stop, with its eatery, omi­yage-buying opportunities and, let’s say, necessary indoor plumbing facilities, also is a favorite of people traveling on their own, Koi said.

“A lot of people have smartphones … and take pictures of themselves on the grounds. It’s interesting,” she said. “It’s just what people do nowadays,” she said.

School groups traveling to the island for their Hawaiiana curriculum also stop by, as do other visitors, en route to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

The shop in Naalehu is a little more than 10 miles from South Point, the southernmost point in the U.S.

All the visitors and off-site retail demand have the company planning expansion of the facility, which was built in 1991.

“We’ve grown tremendously since then … so to do more and meet demand, we’re going to increase our baking space and capacity,” Koi said.

The name Punaluu Bake Shop Inc. was registered May 18, 1989, by C. Brewer & Co., which opened the bakery in January 1991.

Koi was hired then as an account clerk and has worked her way up to her current position.

Along the way “I learned the whole baking process and everything,” she said. “You just need to know all the different jobs and operations.”

Kurisu bought the operation in 2002, she said.

Expansion also will help meet increasing off-island demand.

The exact dimensions of the expanded space are unknown as “we’re still at the drawing stages, so nothing’s really concrete yet,” Koi said.

Also to be determined are texactly what types of equipment to purchase and how many additional employees to hire.

Expansion also may result in a broader selection of products, she said.

She anticipates the process may take eight to 10 months, given all that is yet to be finalized.

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“Buy Local” runs on Aloha Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.