Scripting pop up menus in Numbers

Too bad Numbers does not have a means for making a new pop up menu with a list of items. When you make a new pop up menu it is just empty. I've tried preloading the cell with a delimited list of items delimited by return, comma and semi-colon but these items just become the first (and only) menu item in the new pop up menu.

Has anyone found a work-around?