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Since this new business venture was a product rather than a service a new company was needed to promote the product Hot Shots Paintball was already a successful brand in itself so a new company identity was needed to front this idea. Either way the idea had captured the eyes of the original directors of Hot Shots Paintball in Newbury and the new version was on the drawing board.
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It is not certain wether the original paint grenade manufactured Astra was actually offered to the paintball industry as a genuine consumable product, it may well have just been a firework/pyrotechnic placed on the market as a gimmick firework. Previously the former Astra Fireworks had offered a similar pyrotechnic made from polystyrene which was painted black, but blasted into thousands of un-biodegradeable white pieces, this was unrealistic for paintball fields looking to keep their woodlands tidy under the watchful eyes of the UK’s tough planning councillors. The brand was founded in 1996 with the idea to manufacture a pyrotechnic paint grenade that looked similar to the real thing and was biodegradable the idea was to make a product from pressed paper pulp, similar to an egg box. Enola Gaye is Europes longest serving pyrotechnic company manufacturing pyrotechnics for the paintball and airsoft industries.