The growth curves for E. coli O157:H7 (#043888) are reported. We make the case that the onset of stationary growth is the optimal point at which a bacteria culture is considered suitable for quantitative Raman analyses. The optimal conditions for 3-mercaptophenylboronic acid coating of bacteria cells is also reported. Fundamental drawbacks of the status-quo approach have been elucidated and overcome, based on measurable improvements to the experimental methodology. This approach is shown to be suitable for the evaluation of bacterial rinse-washing efficacy by means of Raman light-scattering. The data were compared to label-free applications and the measurable differences between each approach were defined. Future use of 3-mercaptophenylboronic acid labelling for SERS analyses of bacteria should strictly follow the methods that we outlined within this paper. A real-time method to surveil mass bacterial communities directly in situ is also reported. The approach was successfully employed to indiscriminately monitor mass bacteria populations directly among plant tissue.