Yesterday afternoon saw the grand opening of TRP Portage la Prairie, located on Highway 1 East just outside the city.

TRP is an aftermarket parts store that supplies parts for trucks, trailers and buses.

"We do anything from brakes to drums to airbags, clamps, exhaust. Pretty much everything that we do at the main Peterbilt store, we do here," explains Peterbilt Manitoba General Manager Dan Speer.

He explains one of the big things about setting up in Portage was the location.

"The location here is mint. It doesn't get any better on the Trans Canada," says Speer. "Geographically, that's one of the things we look at when we set up somewhere. We're in Winnipeg, we set up in Brandon in 91 and this is the halfway point," he says, noting when farm equipment breaks down, the Portage location gives farmers a closer option than driving all the way out to the big city.

He notes Burbank Express, located in the same building as TRP, also influenced the choice of location.

"Burbank is a big customer of ours and they've gotten even larger. So that was a big part of it, moving in here with Jeff Jeanson and his team," says Speer, adding "I just see a lot of growth with the potato boom going on here. I think Portage is going to be a little bit of a boom town and we're excited about that."

The store officially opened in January, but a grand opening barbecue took place yesterday. Counter Specialist Cody Woodward says the grand opening saw a pretty good turnout, with around 150 people coming out.

"The parking lot was nice and full of traffic. There was a nice steady stream of people checking out the store and taking a look to see what we had for inventory and pricing, so it was nice to see that," says Woodward.