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How Taco Bell uses its best GMs as a growth engine. Apr 12, 2026, 1:11 AM PT * Taco Bell recently hosted its Golden Bell awards, a recognition trip for top-performing managers. * More than a management retreat, Taco Bell says the event helps drive outsize growth. * Golden Bell-winning restaurants grew sales by nearly 20% in 2025 and boast better staff retention. At Taco Bell, a weeklong trip to Hawaii is more than a perk for top-performing managers - it's part of the company's growth strategy. The chain's annual Golden Bell awards, held this year in mid-March, recognize its top 150 general managers and are as much a management retreat as they are an awards show. Taco Bell brings its top GMs to Maui, where they get a week of recognition, excursions, and a chance to compare notes with company leaders and one another. Like many companies, Taco Bell uses retreats and recognition to reward top-performing managers. However, what sets the taco chain's approach apart is the continued bet that its general managers - not solely its menu or marketing - are a key competitive edge, even as other companies scale back middle management. In its fourth quarter, Taco Bell delivered 7% same-store sales growth, outpacing the industry, and the company says Golden Bell winners were a big part of that performance. The company said its award-winning restaurant leaders grew sales 19% in 2025, often running high-volume locations with annual sales volumes of $2.5 million to $4 million and beyond. Michelle Beasley, Taco Bell's US chief operating officer, told Business Insider that the award process is built around a small set of business metrics tied to the brand's goals. Winners are selected from three categories: highest transaction growth, the company's "Supreme" operational-excellence measure, and guest reviews. Beasley said Taco Bell is intentionally focused on consumer-facing metrics because those are the measures the company believes most directly drive performance. She also stressed that the company is thinking about how to scale good habits across the system, and sees the event as a way to spread winning traits beyond the 150 honorees. The leaders who rise to the top, Beasley said, tend to be the ones who "lead from the front," communicate clearly, and take care of the team around them. "Culture is fueling our results," Jamie Harrison, Taco Bell's global chief people and culture officer, told Business Insider. "We're a people-first culture, and we see that when we pour into our teams, like with Golden Bell, they also have a chance to do that for their teams, too." Kimberly Hairrell, Taco Bell's GM of the Year, who received her second Golden Bell award this year, told Business Insider that her path to the top was shaped by 50-hour workweeks as she battled a cancer diagnosis, and a team that refused to let her carry the burden alone. "My team is what made it happen," she said. For Hairrell, the award was less about personal recognition than about proving that "you can still achieve things that you set your mind to." Noah Starkey, who won his first Golden Bell this year - his second year being the manager of his own store - described a similar mindset. He started as a crew member in college and worked his way up to GM over five years, and said the key to winning was not simply sales growth, but focus on customers, employees, and consistency. Both Hairrell and Starkey shared a competitive nature, already setting their sights on achieving Golden Bell status next year. That kind of internal competition is exactly what Taco Bell is trying to create: a system where top performers raise the bar for everyone else. Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert at [email protected] or Signal at byktl.50. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's its guide to sharing information securely.

PR Newswire highlights 13 top press releases from March 2026. PR Newswire published its monthly editorial roundup on April 10, 2026, spotlighting the 13 most newsworthy and widely read press releases from March. The list spans food and beverage, consumer products, automotive, healthcare, finance, logistics, and tech, offering a cross-industry snapshot of what drove earned media attention last month. Food and beverage: three stories made the cut. Three CPG and foodservice stories competed with M&A, pharma, and automotive announcements to earn spots on the list, a strong signal that consumer brand activity generated exceptional readership volume in March. Kinder Joy launches unicorns and racing collections. Ferrero North America unveiled two new themed Kinder Joy toy collections featuring 40 different toys across unicorn and racing formats, rotating throughout the year. Each egg maintains the brand's signature double-layer milk and cocoa cream with crispy cocoa-filled wafer bites as the food component, while the toy collections serve as the primary consumer driver of repeat purchase behavior. For confectionery manufacturers and co-packers producing chocolate novelty formats, the Kinder Joy rotation model requires tightly coordinated annual production scheduling across both food ingredient inputs and toy component manufacturing. McDonald's and Netflix launch KPop Demon Hunters inspired meals. McDonald's partnered with Netflix to tie two adult meals to the KPop Demon Hunters film, featuring exclusive photocards that unlock first-access streaming content for a limited time. The campaign introduced South Korean-inspired McDonald's flavors into the U.S. market for a limited window, continuing the QSR industry's broader strategy of using regional flavor bridges to drive culturally relevant product development and trial among younger, globally connected consumers. Taco Bell reveals 2026 menu innovations at Live Más LIVE. Taco Bell unveiled its annual innovation pipeline at a Hollywood-style event hosted by Vince Staples at The Palladium, with performances by Doja Cat, Benson Boone, Peso Pluma, Demi Lovato, and others. New menu items announced included the Crème Brulee Crunchwrap Slider, Mountain Dew Baja Midnight Pie, and Diablo Dusted Crispy Chicken Nuggets. The Live Más LIVE event is Taco Bell's primary mechanism for generating pre-launch earned media on its full innovation pipeline before items reach retail rollout. Consumer products: nostalgia meets plush. Build-A-Bear launches frosted animal cookie collection. Build-A-Bear Workshop introduced a plush collection inspired by iconic pink-and-white frosted animal cookies with colorful sprinkles, bringing food nostalgia into its make-your-own experiential retail format. The launch is a clean example of how confectionery brand equity can extend into non-food licensed product categories, connecting a beloved snack format to a high-gift-occasion consumer experience. NRMP releases 2026 Main Residency Match results. The National Resident Matching Program reported that the 2026 Main Residency Match included 6,809 certified program tracks, with 93.5% of 44,344 positions filling when the matching algorithm ran. The annual match results carry structural implications for hospital staffing pipelines across the U.S. healthcare system. Beyond individual stories, PR Newswire identified three dominant topic clusters that generated high press release volume across the month. MWC 2026 drove significant tech and telecom announcement activity. Key releases included a Tencent Cloud and Maxon partnership for scalable generative AI for creators, Siemens' new cybersecurity solution for industrial 5G networks developed with Palo Alto Networks, and Fibocom's FG205 module and 5G MiFi solution. Women's History Month generated brand campaign announcements across beauty, apparel, beverage, and finance. Maybelline and L'Oréal Paris launched Women's Day campaigns. Athleta hosted a charity cold plunge. Lagunitas partnered with female tattoo artists. NYSE hosted Paris Hilton and Gloria Steinem for bell-ringing. Nasdaq welcomed nonprofit Dress for Success Worldwide, which rang the closing bell in celebration of its goal to empower two million women globally. March Madness activated CPG, beverage, and tech brands simultaneously. Spectrum debuted a Multiview feature for watching up to four games at once. Wendy's launched its Dunks Menu and Dunkstakes sweepstakes with a $100,000 grand prize. White Claw opened a $1 million bar tab during the tournament. LG donated $10,000 to each Final Four host school to support student athlete mental health initiatives. What this means for the food and beverage supply chain. The presence of three CPG and foodservice stories among PR Newswire's top 13 for March confirms that consumer brand earned media is generating readership at a scale competitive with major M&A, pharma approvals, and automotive launches. The Kinder Joy launch is particularly notable in the context of the broader Ferrero portfolio, given that Ferrero North America is simultaneously co-manufacturing the Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and 100 Grand Ice Cream Candy Bar line with Wells Enterprises. The McDonald's KPop Demon Hunters campaign reflects the continuing convergence of entertainment licensing and QSR menu innovation that has driven a significant share of fast food product development in 2025 and 2026. For ingredient suppliers, co-manufacturers, and food brand operators tracking where consumer attention goes at scale, this roundup provides a reliable industry-wide signal for which categories and formats drove the most press release engagement in March. About Source86. Source86 tracks CPG and foodservice brand activity across categories including confectionery, frozen food, QSR, and premium protein to help food manufacturers, co-packers, and ingredient suppliers stay ahead of demand signals in fast-moving consumer markets. Whether your production team sources bulk cocoa and dairy ingredients for confectionery novelty formats, specialty flavor systems for QSR menu innovation, or protein and functional ingredient inputs for the premium food segment, Source86 is your bridge to the right wholesale and bulk sourcing partners. Contact Source86 today to start your sourcing search.