Granular matter serves as a prototype of collective systems far from equilibrium and can be used to exemplify many concepts now associated with nonlinear dynamics and complex systems. The foundational concepts apply across a wide range of scales – from fine particles to ice floes – and across a wide range of technological fields. It serves also as a test-ground and illustration of the benefits and drawbacks of discrete and continuum viewpoints. However, in spite of being a topic of rich physical content and unquestionable importance to the practice of chemical engineering, granular matter as a sub-discipline was not a central part of the basic tool-kit that launched the modern version of chemical engineering back in the 1960's. It should have been. We present vignettes of recent results and speculate how the course of ChE would have been altered if this had happened.