my @menu_bar_names = qw ( aMenu bMenu ... );
       my @MenuItems="";
       my %aMenu = { label => "  A",
                     MenuItems => [ @MenuItems ] };
       my %bMenu = { label => "  B",
                     MenuItems => [ @MenuItems ] };
       my %cMenu = { label => "  C",
                      MenuItems => [ @MenuItems ] };

##</code><code>##

   foreach my $app (@sorted_applications) {
      $app = lc $app;
      if ( "$app" lt "b" ) {
         push  ( @{ $aMenu{MenuItems} }, $app);
         next;
      } elsif ($app lt "c" ) {
         push  (@{ $bMenu{MenuItems} },$app);
         next;
...

##</code><code>##

         print " @{$aMenu{MenuItems}}[0]\n";

##</code><code>##

foreach my $abc_menu (@menu_bar_names) {
         print " @{$abc_menu{MenuItems}}[0]\n";
}