LONDON: US chocolate maker Hershey is culturally a good match for Cadbury, the British confectioner's chief executive said in an interview out Saturday.

Todd Stitzer told the Financial Times newspaper that the ethical values of the US brand tied in with Cadbury.

Hershey and Italian peer Ferrero said Wednesday they were considering bids for Cadbury, in a move which whipped up a takeover war with Kraft Foods.

Cadbury was founded by Quakers who marketed cocoa drinks as an alternative to alcohol, while Milton Hershey, who started the US firm, was inspired by Cadbury's Bourneville village in building his Pennsylvanian company town Hershey.

"Both companies were founded by men of principle and vision who created company towns and supported charitable causes... There is quite a lot of cultural similarity," Stitzer said.

"I would prefer Cadbury to be in an environment where its values and principles could continue."

Last week, Kraft Foods launched a formal hostile 9.8-billion-pound (16.2-billion-dollar, 10.8-billion-euro) bid for Cadbury.

"There's a worry that in a much larger, less focused organisation that those values don't get nurtured in the right way," Stitzer said.

"The Cadburys were principled capitalists, they believed you could make a profit and do the right thing. We want to keep those values alive and well," he added.

Hershey already has a relationship with Cadbury and holds a licence to produce its Dairy Milk chocolate bars and Cadbury Creme Eggs in the United States.

The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported Friday that the Hershey Trust charitable trust controlling the chocolate maker was backing a bid of 17 billion dollars for Cadbury.