Xinjiang's "dinosaur egg" pluots hit over 110,000 express parcels

Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily (Reporter Fan Qiongyan) news: Shortly before midnight on August 30, 2026, courier Wu Chao was loading boxes of Xinjiang's "dinosaur egg" pluots onto a conveyor belt at a SF Express sorting facility in Aksu Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. From there, the fruit was transferred to refrigerated trucks and sent on to Hongqipo Airport.

Photo shows couriers pack boxes of "dinosaur egg" pluots and place them on a conveyor belt for truck shipment to the airport at an SF Express sorting facility in Aksu Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Photo by Zhang Changru)

"Dinosaur egg" pluots are a hybrid of apricots and plums developed through multiple rounds of crossbreeding. They combine the delicate fragrance of apricots with the sweet-tart flavor of plums, making them a rising star among specialty fruits in recent years. Previously, limited production and relatively high prices earned them the nickname "the aristocrat of fruits" among consumers. But over the past two years, as large-scale cultivation in major growing areas such as

Aksu, Kashi, and Hotan began to pay off, prices have gradually come down — and the fruit has won over customers across the country.

"Currently, we're handling about 4,000 parcel deliveries per day for "dinosaur egg" pluots, and as of August 30, the total shipment volume has reached 114,000, up about 30 percent year-on-year," said Pu Lei, business manager at the Aksu branch of SF Express (Xinjiang) Co., Ltd. Given the current sales trajectory, market demand for the fruit continues to gain momentum, with orders concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta region and other parts of eastern China. Pu expected total express deliveries of "dinosaur egg" pluots to exceed 300,000 parcels for the full year.

Thanks to Aksu's well-established cold storage and warehousing facilities for fresh produce, this year's shipments are primarily coming from the Aksu production area. Freshly picked "dinosaur egg" pluots are first sent to dedicated cold storage units for a 24-hour pre-cooling process before being transferred to the SF Express sorting center in Aksu for outbound distribution.

To ensure timely delivery of "dinosaur egg" pluots, Pu Lei said the company has secured access to seven passenger flight routes offering direct service to Xi'an, Chengdu, Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities in China, with daily air freight volume reaching about 15 tons. When air freight capacity is limited, shipments are rerouted through the Aksu–Urumqi cold-chain express line and transferred to all-cargo flights at Urumqi Tianshan International Airport, with temperature controls in place throughout to preserve freshness.

(A written permission shall be obtained for reprinting, excerpting, copying and mirroring of the contents published on this website. Unauthorized aforementioned act shall be deemed an infringement, of which the actor shall be held accountable under the law.)