LONDON  Kraft took its $16.7 billion bid for Cadbury, the British chocolate and chewing gum maker, directly to shareholders on Monday after the Cadbury board rejected the offer as too low.

But Kraft did not raise its offer, sticking with its original proposal from September. Kraft, whose products include Ritz crackers and Oreo cookies, offered £3, or $4.90, in cash and 0.2589 new Kraft shares for every Cadbury share. The offer values each Cadbury share at £7.17, a 26 percent premium to the price before Kraft made its original proposal.

Cadbury’s shares initially dropped 1.72 percent in London after Kraft’s announcement, indicating that investors became less optimistic that a deal would materialize, before increasing slightly. The shares remained above the offer price, at £7.63 a share.

Analysts had expected Kraft to sweeten its original proposal. But in its filing with the London Stock Exchange, Kraft again asserted that its latest offer was full and fairly priced. Monday’s offer, it said, had an enterprise value of 13.9 times Cadbury’s 2008 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Cadbury’s own acquisition of Adams in 2002 was valued at 12.8 times such earnings, Kraft said.