Innovative new products offer agri-food producers and processors an opportunity to differentiate their output from the commodities prevalent in the sector. Unfortunately, many new products do not live up to initial expectations and are eventually abandoned. However, even with products that are doomed to fail, there is occasionally a period of time after their introduction when strong, but fallacious, indicators of success appear. Sometimes the initial appearance of success is so strong that new entrants rush in, increasing demand and prices for production capacity, thereby strengthening the illusion of industry success. Eventually, supply catches up to the unsupported demand and the bubble bursts. The fall is often dramatic and painful. This paper provides a retrospective examination of the economic factors surrounding one example of such a situation, the Ontario emu bubble between 1993 and 1996.