CHICAGO: Members of Cadbury Plc's board have been talking with counterparts at Hershey Co as expectations fade for a significantly higher bid from Kraft Foods Inc.

Cadbury is not only seeking a higher price than Kraft's $16.8 billion (10.5 billion pound) hostile offer, but also a merger partner that would let the British chocolatier have some say in a combined company, two sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters.

"As they go through this process, they feel as though they want to have a management say in the organization and I think that they perceive that one of the suitors is better than the other," one of the sources said.