LONDON, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Milk bottles will carry "telltale" labels that change color when they are too warm to help households reduce food waste, British media reported Wednesday.

The color-changing labels will start appearing on supermarket bottles from next year, according to waste reduction charity Wrap, which is developing them with retailers and dairies.

The so-called "thermochronic" labels, which contain heat sensitive ink, are being developed after Wrap conducted research concluding that households are throwing away 25 million pounds (32.92 U.S. dollars) of unconsumed milk a year, which goes off while sitting in the fridge.

The labels will help reduce the amount of milk and other food wasted because the average fridge is 2 degrees Celsius warmer than the guideline maximum of 5 degrees Celsius.

British households waste 490 million pints of milk a year, an average of 18.5 pints per home, and warm fridges are largely to blame for it going off.

The labels would cost "significantly less" than 1 pence (0.013 U.S. dollars) a bottle once they were in widespread use after the trial, the reports said.